The Rick and the Dead
by roisaber
Summary: Where do you go when even the whole of the universe isn't big enough? Rick and Morty find out when a chance encounter with the Zigerions goes totally sideways and propels them into a paradigm that even Rick doesn't have totally in hand.
1. Chapter 1

"Morty! Morty, wake up Morty!"

Morty groaned and rolled over. His head hurt abominably like it was being stepped on by an unruly elephant. White light beat down on his eyelids and reached into his cranial cavity like an eagle's outstretched claw. This was, by far, the worst hangover he'd ever experienced after being forced to drink by Rick – and as far as Morty could remember, he hadn't even had a drop. Against his better judgment, he opened his eyes, and found his grandfather staring at him from an inch away.

"Aiya! Geeze Rick, you could get out of my face, you know?" Morty asked with a groan.

Rick was insistent. "You've gotta get up Morty."

Morty slowly dragged himself into an upright position and looked around. The earth beneath them was rocky, uneven, and red, and the sky was completely obscured by a luminous grey fog. Morty thought back and tried to remember what had happened just before he lost consciousness. Something about the Zigerions… Rick had been drunk – of course – and gotten into a bar brawl with their latest, and developmentally disabled leader, Princess Carolyn… and then there'd been one very, very, very loud bang.

"Geeze, where are we, Rick?" Morty finally sputtered.

"We're dead, Morty! Those stupid Zigerions wanted to prove they had my secret formula. So they mixed it up right in front of us and – boom! We're dead, *urp* Morty! Now's our chance to finally kick God's ass!"

Rick reached into his lab coat and pulled out a high-intensity plasma pistol, which powered up with an audible whine.

"You hear me, God!? It's just you and me now motherfucker!"

Rick stood, panting in anger, and for a long time nothing happened. Morty finally climbed woozily to his feet and stood next to Rick, disoriented. It couldn't possibly be true, right? They couldn't be _dead_. Rick was a card cheat; a drunken lout; and, from time to time, an outright villain – but one thing he wasn't was dumb enough to let himself get blown up by the Zigerions. Right?

"Don't make me come up there, God!" Rick shouted furiously into the fog.

"I dunno, Rick," Morty stuttered uneasily. "Maybe you should just leave God alone, you know? Don't antagonize him."

Rick answered through clenched teeth. "I'll antagonize whoever I want, _Morty_."

"Ah, geeze, man. Nothing good is going to come of this…"

Suddenly, the pair heard footsteps approaching from within the fog. Rick raised his pistol and took careful aim as a dark shape consolidated itself out of the fog. To Morty's amazement, the silhouette took the form of a woman. She was short, with cropped auburn hair and startlingly blue eyes. She was wearing a navy-colored uniform of unknown origin that suggested martial authority. She wasn't visibly armed, but something about the way she was toying with a small silver hairpin made Morty feel distinctly nervous. Solid black boots – only the tiniest hint of heel – clacked against the rocky ground with evident purpose. Rick fastened the line of sight of his pistol securely to her left breast.

"We want to see the Boss," Rick announced before she could get in a word edgewise.

The strange woman just shrugged. "This is a very dangerous place. You should follow me before any… _thing_ … shows up."

"The only place I'm going is *urp* to kick the shit out of God. You know where he is?"

"I'm afraid not," the woman answered with a smirk. "I do recommend you follow me – for your own safety."

Morty shifted nervously on his feet. The lady was very pretty, but something about her demeanor suggested something hard and sharp, like a diamond, or a scalpel. Something dangerous if mishandled.

"If I needed some cosplaying weirdo to keep me safe, I'd ask," Rick replied with a burp.

The stranger flushed.

"Now see here," she answered in a tone dripping with acidity. "I'm a Valkyrie Major, sent to rescue the souls of the dead from an eternity trapped in Limbo, and-"

Rick cut her off. " _Dumb_. Why don't you just fuck off back where you came from?"

The woman turned on her heel, levitated into the air, and flew away at a speed surpassing that of the fastest earthly sprinter.

"Ah, geeze, Rick. Maybe we should have gone with her. I mean, we don't know where we are, and she said that-"

"No time, Morty." Rick pulled out his portal gun and fired at the ground. Nothing happened. "Shit!"

"See, Rick? You can't go picking a fight with everybody you meet. You know, sometimes, I can't believe you Rick. You get us killed and then-"

But Rick obviously wasn't listening. Instead, he pulled out another strange, handheld device, and fiddled with the knobs and dials on it until he got a result he liked on the thing's oscilloscope screen. He triumphantly jammed the device in Morty's face despite his grandson being unable to make heads or tails of the readout.

"See, Morty? We're doing just fine! There's a settlement over in that direction – only twenty klicks! I hope your shoes are comfortable Morty because we have some walking to do."

"Geeze Rick… can't you ever take anything seriously?"

But Rick was already on the move, and there was nothing Morty could do but scurry after him.

The second kilometer of their walk was much like the first. The lands were broken and dun colored, and they occasionally had to climb down into culverts and then ascend back up to the planet's gently rolling plains. The mist cut visibility down to about half a kilometer, and the pair saw nothing by way of trees or any other flora or fauna as they continued their march. The air was neither warm nor cool, but seemed to perfectly acclimate to their skin such that they could barely even feel the faint breezes that occasionally kicked up dust across the chalky badlands. The air smelled like musty old books. Kilometers three and four were much like the first two. Kilometers five and six didn't change much. Morty felt like his legs should be getting sore; it seemed like he should be getting hungry or thirty; but he felt nothing except a vague, growing weariness.

"Only ten kilometers to go, Morty! We're halfway there," Rick said with uncharacteristic encouragement.

Morty answered wearily, "Fuck off, Rick."

"Hey, that's no way to talk to your grandfather!" Rick pulled a flask out of his lab coat and downed the entire contents in a single gulp. "We're here, aren't we? Thanks your grandfather not even _death_ can put an end to the adventures of Rick and Morty!"

"We wouldn't even be in this mess if not for you, Rick, you know? Thanks to you, I'm never going to graduate high school."

"Like you ever had a chance of that anyway," Rick muttered, but Morty ignored him and stormed on.

"Thanks to you, I'm never going to see Jessica again! Or Mom, or Dad, or Summer! I can't believe you, Rick. You promised everyone that you'd take care of me."

"I did, Morty *urp,* I did! How many people get to keep having a conversation after they're dead? That's all thanks to your grandpa, Morty."

"I don't think so, Rick. I don't see how you can credit yourself for this!"

"Pfht. If you left things to God, Morty, where would you be now? Sitting around with a bunch of angels playing a harp and singing dumb hymns? We're on a real adventure now, Morty – the biggest adventure of a lifetime. Well, afterlifetime. You know what I mean."

"How are we even still – you know – here? I thought you didn't believe in God or any of that stuff."

Rick snorted. "God's got nothing to do with it, Morty. It's all about quantum entanglement and distributed computation! We're the whole universe now, Morty! We've been released from the prison of our brains and the computation of our thoughts is now being performed in the heart of every nebula and star, simultaneously! We're like gods, Morty! Quantum gods!"

"Oh yeah? You look exactly like you did before we died, Rick. Do something godlike," Morty challenged. "Make me an ice cream cone. Right here, out of nothing, you know?"

Rick concentrated. He screwed up his eyes, pursed his lips, and clenched his asshole tightly. He imagined the infinite, perfect consciousness he must now be – every electron that had ever been in contact with any electron that had ever been in his brain _was_ his mind now – he had the power of a billion billion stars at his disposal.

"I'm waiting, Rick," Morty said impatiently.

Nothing happened. The misty air didn't magically coagulate into an ice cream cone. Instead, the fog continued to waft by in thick sheets, and the ground was just as broken and dusky as it was when he first started.

"Practice, Morty. I just need some practice," Rick insisted lamely. "You can't expect me to become the new god of this universe in half an hour, Morty. You've got to give me at least two days!"

"Shut up, Rick. Let's just keep walking or we'll never get to this settlement."

"*urp* Whatever, Morty. Who died and put you in charge?"

Morty's glare was fierce enough that even Rick was briefly taken aback.

The two continued to walk. Still, long after their legs should be exhausted and their feet covered in blisters, there was no outward sign of the distance they'd travelled by foot. Their minds grew increasingly tired but their bodies were as spry as if they'd just started their journey. The land was monotonous and Morty started to grow sick just at the look of it. There was nothing but more fog; more rocks; more dusty, reddish soil; more dry gullies. It looked a little bit like the surface of Mars, but the amount of moisture in the air precluded the possibility that they might be on the surface of the Red Planet. Step by trudging step, they continued onward in the direction indicated by Rick's instrument.

Rick stumbled a little on a loose stone and gave silent inward thanks that alcohol still did its job. He wasn't drunk drunk, just drunk, and the faint feeling of wooziness was a welcome relief from the boring sight of the identical furrows and foothills that characterized the surface of whatever lost planet they'd found themselves on in death. Though it had been many hours since they'd begun walking, the light was the same intensity of illumination, scattered into a grey curtain that stretched around them in every direction. Rick hiccupped and continued onward.

Finally, they reached the outskirts of the settlement. The broken ground gave way to large channels of murky water, covered here and there with large blooms algae that grew in a particularly nauseating shade of puce. The fields stretched onwards for another couple of kilometers, and then the pair began to hear the sounds of something like civilization. Rick kept his sidearm close to hand as they finally found themselves on a wide, flat road, leading towards the source of the listless clamor.

"Be ready, Morty. We don't know what these *hic* people will be *urp* like."

"You're drunk!"

"And you're a child, but I can get drunker."

"That doesn't even make _sense_ , Rick."

"Shut up, Morty. We're almost there."

The two finally made it to the edge of the town, proper. It looked like a cross between an old west village and Anasazi pueblos, and all the buildings were made from the same reddish-grey soil, hardened into adobe walls. There were a few residents visible on the main drag, clad in dirty, tattered rags and toiling away at uncertain tasks in the foglight. The villagers stared at the newcomers, torn between suspicion and awe. Rick strolled right into the center of town, heedless of all the attention, and Morty followed nervously behind him. Another hunchbacked villager, this one carrying an iron scepter, came out of one of the buildings and eyed the pair with furrowed brows.

"This is Grand San Sebastian, capital of these lands. I am its king, Sebastian the Great. What business do you have here, travelers? We do not often get visitors."

Rick whistled. "Yeah, I can see why. This shithole is your _capital_? I'd hate to see what your suburbs look like."

Sebastian the Great looked troubled, and toyed uneasily with his scepter.

Finally, the king said, "What exactly are you doing here? You don't look like a settler, and it's rare to see outsiders. Very rare."

"Well don't worry, buddy, we're just passing through," Rick replied. "Wouldn't want to stay here a moment more than is necessary. You just point me to God and we'll be on our way."

At this, Sebastian the Great laughed heartily. The muck-raking villagefolk started to gather around, curious at what had elicited the laughter of their king in such a dismal place.

"God?" Sebastian asked incredulously. " _God_? You still believe in such superstitious fairy nonsense? There's no _God_ here, Mr…?"

"It's Rick; this is my grandson, Morty. And of course I don't _believe_ in God. But there must be somebody around here who acts as the government, God or no God. So you just tell me a direction."

Sebastian the Great fidgeted uneasily. The villagers abandoned all pretense of work and stood staring at the exchange, mouths agape. Sebastian called over a couple of the other villagers with a gesture of his hands, and they conferred under their breath while Rick stood by, increasingly impatient. Finally, the trio came to some sort of consensus, and Sebastian turned back to Rick.

"We do not know what is beyond these lands, Traveler Rick," the king announced. "But if you go due north out of town, you'll eventually come to the Fogcleaver Mountains. Somewhere beyond those crags is where the heathen Valkyries come from on their errands of spying and kidnapping. If you rid our world of such beings, I'm sure you'd be doing yourself a favor as much as us. If there's anybody who represents the 'government of the cosmos,' I'm certain it's they."

Rick put away his pistol, mollified, and took out the sensor from before. It took mere moments for the device to determine the planet's magnetic north, and as Morty sputtered in protest, Rick grabbed his arm and started marching the pair in the apparent direction of the Fogcleavers.

"Wait, travelers!" the king objected. "Won't you at least stay for supper?"

"No thanks. Not hungry," Rick called over his shoulder.

"Bu-bu- are you sure we shouldn't eat _something_ , Rick?"

"No time, Morty. Let's find these Valkyries and get a lead on tracking down God."

"Good sirs!" Sebastian tried one last gambit. "There will be alcohol a-plenty!"

Rick stopped in his tracks.

"What kind?" he asked the king suspiciously.

The king was evasive.

"Moonshine."

Rick suddenly burst out laughing. "That's good enough for me! Okay, Morty, we'll stop for just long enough to get _druuuuuuuunk_!"

"Geeze, Rick…" But, as usual, Morty was already drowned out by Rick's recklessly self-centered narcissism.

The pair followed King Sebastian into the most ornate of the adobe buildings – obviously their most important building, because there were actually a few bas reliefs carved into the mud plaster of the façade. Inside there was a long, low table; a few sooty iron pans; a hearth; and a pile of straw that must have served as the king's royal bed. Morty and Rick settled in around the table while the king made a few hasty arrangements to serve the unexpected travelers.

"So, tell me about your world," the king inquired while one of the rag-clothed village marms fiddled with a ceramic decanter.

"Nothing to tell," Rick answered with a shrug. "It's got nothing to do with us anymore."

"Damn it, Rick! I can't believe you can, you know, act so disinterested and everything! We're _dead_! We're _dead_ Rick, do you get it!? Do you even have a plan?" Morty's chest heaved with anger.

"Don't worry about it, _Morty_. Your grandpa's been living on borrowed time for a long time now. And as for you – do you have any idea how many Mortys I've been through?"

Morty blanched. "What?"

"You don't really think you're the _original_ , do you? Rick D1389 kidnapped your mother's son within ten minutes of you being born. I had to do a lot of favors for the Council of Ricks to get a replacement for you, made my skin crawl. And then you got killed by Grebulonians when you were only 2. _That_ was a whole ordeal. So if you're going to throw a tantrum just because you're dead, *hic* just remember, most Mortys are _dead_ , Morty! The only thing special about you is that you lasted as long as you did."

Morty bristled but didn't reply. Soon, two tall mugs of murky, brackish fluid were passed across the table. Rick immediately guzzled his before wincing in agony. Morty took a single sip, gagged, and almost vomited in his own lap.

"Ugh! What is this?" Morty asked.

"It tastes like the *urp* the ass end of a north bound Zervix," Rick added.

"Why, it's distilled kombucha," the king replied proudly. "It's our national beverage! In fact, it's our only beverage… the only crops we're able to grow in this environment are molds and algae."

Rick burped. "Gross."

"Another round for our guests, please, Misty," the king said with a motion to the serving crone.

And so another round was poured, which Rick downed as easily as the first. Morty took a few more sips of the terrible beverage in an effort to be polite. The three traded a few stories that went nowhere; the king's life as the autocrat of a sustenance algae farming community could not have been less interesting, and Rick seemed to have already forgotten entirely about their previous life, as it had been, like on earth and stuff. Finally, sneaky tendrils of booze worked its way through his brain, and Morty found himself nodding off where he sat.

"Misty! Please arrange a room for our guests, please. You can sleep with me here in the palace," the king added with an unsettling leer.

The ancient woman mumbled something intelligible and led the pair to a non-descript adobe one room house on the other side of the road. Morty could barely keep his eyes opened and stumbled several times in a drunken haze. However awful it had tasted, the fermented beverage had been enough to give him an unpleasant, pounding drunk, and he could already feel the next "morning's" hangover creeping up on him despite his state of intoxication. Finally the pair stumbled down into a pile of straw that served as the woman's bed, and Rick immediately fell into a deep sleep. He snored like a buzzsaw.

Morty was soon awakened by a strange feeling in his pants. At first, he assumed it was a totally inappropriate nighttime erection, but he quickly realized it was the wrong place. He started to drift back to sleep. Then he felt _a something_ reaching into his pockets, and he awoke with a start and found himself face to face with King Sebastian.

"Wha – wha? What the hell are you doing!?" Morty demanded with a surge of adrenaline.

"Get'em, boys!" the king roared in response.

An uncertain mêlée broke out in the dimly illuminated shack. Morty squared off against several rag-covered shapes, which seemed intend on relieving the pair of whatever property they could get their hands on. One was already reaching into Rick's lab coat.

"Rick!" Morty shouted.

But Morty's warning was to no avail; Rick was still out cold. Morty feinted right and then juked left, finally getting close enough to deliver a solid kick into Rick's rib cage.

"Rick, wake up, Rick! They're trying to rob us."

"Goddamned Zigerions. Always trying to get my recipe for cupcakes," Rick mumbled in response.

" _Rick!_ "

One of the villagers managed to clock Morty directly across the jaw, but the teen was surprised to discover the blow hardly hurt at all. A diet of algae and diffuse foglight must not be enough to keep their bones and muscles healthy. Indeed, the villager who struck him let out a loud yowl and drew back from the brawl. Morty quickly kicked another ragged form, and the voice of King Sebastian answered back with a loud, pained grunt.

"Rick, we've got to get out of here!"

Rick finally snapped to consciousness and took rapid stock of the situation. He kicked off the hobo fiddling inside his lab coat, and grabbed Morty's arm.

"Let's run, Morty!" he urged with audible annoyance.  
"I was waiting on _you_ , Rick!"

"No time for recriminations _Morty_. Let's _goooo!_ "

The pair ran out onto the main drag, followed quickly by their two remaining pursuers. Rick led them northwards out of the town, and Morty stumbled over broken rocks and gulleys, desperately trying to keep up. It didn't take more than three minutes of running before the villagers flagged to a walk and started falling behind. Still, Rick urged him onwards, and within another few minutes the last of the algae farms were out of sight, lost somewhere in the luminous fog.

Morty huffed. "Geeze, now what, Rick?"

Rick only shrugged and started fiddling with his all-purpose sensor.

"I guess we go north, Morty. Let's find out where those Valkyries come from and wring some answers out of them."

"Awh Rick. Do you have to pick another fight? And besides, that woman looked scary, you know? She didn't look like a half-starved rat like those people back there did. I don't think that's such a good idea, to go messing with them, you know?"

"Don't worry so much Morty! Besides, your grandpa knows how to be _very_ persuasive." Rick reached into his lab coat and brandished his pistol.

If there had been any other option – any other at all – Morty would have simply walked away from Rick right then and there. But he doubted he'd get a very warm welcome back in San Sebastian, and there was nowhere else to go, not as far as he could see to the fog-delineated horizon. So he walked after Rick, occasionally mumbling to himself in dismay. What had started as a simple pub dispute had turned into some kind of vaguely nightmarish afterlife, but not the one he'd ever been led to expect by church or popular culture. Where were the angels? Well, there had been the Valkyrie, but Rick had sent her away. He remembered the look on her face and shivered despite the lack of chill.

The pair walked northwards for a long time. Nothing seemed to change – it was the same collection of dun colored gravel; broken stones; and clefts in the earth that had to be jumped over or scrambled through. Though they travelled for many hours, there was still no change in the ambient illumination. The brightly lit mist continued to keep their visibility low. In time, Morty almost stopped believing that they'd encountered any village at all. The monotony started to worm its way into his brain. Several times, he could have sworn he saw shapes in the fog out of the corner of his eye, but whenever he turned to look, there was nothing there. He drew closer to his grandfather, shivering with unease.

As for Rick, he wasn't worried at all. This place, as dumb as it was, was just another adventure at the end of a long lifetime of them. He'd served 8 years in space jail and at least here in the fog he wasn't constantly being harassed for some world-shattering invention. It was like a vacation, really. A boring, boring vacation with no drugs; the worst kind of vacation, really. Rick picked up his northward pace.

The landscape continued as it meant to go on continuing – dull. Morty tried counting stones and lost count at fifty. He then tried to count his steps, and made it to over ten thousand without any visible change in the environment around them. Morty checked his phone for the nth time, and this time, on top of there being no service (obviously,) the battery was flat as well. He couldn't even play Candy Crush as he walked. Though his legs didn't seem to get tired, he found his head drooping downwards, as his mental and emotional exhaustion increasingly preyed on him within the grey curtain of fog.

"Let's take a rest, Morty," Rick finally announced, seeing his grandson's distress.

So, the two plopped down on the dusty ground. His arms made a poor pillow, and the gravelly soil bit into his flesh. Still, Morty was too tired to go on, and soon fell into a dreamless, uneasy sleep.

When he awoke, the scene was exactly as it had been before. Same dirt, same rocks, same fog. He let out an audible groan and Rick looked up from the sensor he'd been fiddling with.

"I think we're close, Morty. I show a large gravitational mass a dozen kilometers ahead. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was those Fogcleaver Mountains that King Douchebag was talking about."

" _Do_ you know better, Rick?" Morty asked in exhaustion.

"I don't know, Morty, it's just a figure of speech! What, you think I know everything, Morty? I've never been here before, _Morty_. So I guess we'd better go find out!"

And so the next phase of their long march began. When the small rocks began to give way to larger boulders, Morty almost started crying tears of joy. Just a tiny change in landscape was a welcome relief after their uncountable hours on the monotonous ruddy plains. Even Rick seemed to be in a better mood, even as the ground got increasingly difficult to navigate. The gulleys turned into crevasses and then even canyons. Though there was still no evidence of life, the jagged rocks visible within the fog became something almost like a forest. A few times, the pair had to scramble on all fours up a dun-colored incline, and the land was now leading them unmistakably upwards. They were at the Fogcleaver Mountains.

"Rick, what are you going to _do_ when we find these Valkyries?" Morty asked with a groan as he almost lost his footing on a scattering of loose gravel.

"I'm going to find out who their leader is, and what's going on in this place. That King Sebastian didn't know shit."

"And _then_ what, Rick?"

Rick just shrugged and led them up a narrow gap between two boulders. "I don't know, Morty. I think I'll take God hostage."

"What!?"

"Think of the ransom, Morty! This isn't some corporate executive's child, or-or-or Hollywood starlet, you know? It's God, Morty! He's got an entire _universe_ of people who rely on him! We can make a fortune *urp* Morty! We'll be _rich_ , Morty!"

Morty scowled. "You know, you can't take it with you, Rick."

"We're already there, Morty; we're already _there_."

"Ahh, geeze, you just don't get it Rick, do you!?"

"Look on the bright side, Morty. You'll never get dragged into Principal Vagina's office again!"

Morty just sighed. There was no arguing with Rick. Well, maybe God could talk some sense into the mad scientist. If anybody could, it would be God, right?

They continued up and up. The incline was steady but mostly tolerable, occasionally broken up by a desperate scramble. True to the name of the range, the fog eventually began to thin, and in time, the pair could even see the vast blanket of cloud laid out beneath them like a grey-colored sea. Once they finally tore out of the last vestiges of the fog, the illumination became bluer, and inexplicably darker. Though the pair looked for the planet's sun in every direction, the source of the light was nowhere to be seen. It was as if the entire sky was lit up in a uniform way, shining down the same oceanic blues without the slightest hint of variation. As they continued to ascend, the illumination continued to weaken, until it was a dimly glowing twilight.

"Where are we, Rick?"

"Nearing the top I'll bet, Morty."

They finally scrambled up the tallest crag they could see, and they turned hither and yon, taking in the incredible scope of the climb they'd made. To the south, the mountains rolled downwards across the shining white vastness that cloaked the lands of King Sebastian. On the other side, the mountains faded away into the darkness of a nearly unbroken night. The only interruption in the darkness was one very conspicuous constellation of multicolored lights a little ways below them, on the northern face of the mountain.

"Wow, Rick. I'll bet we can see for hundreds of miles from up here."

"See, Morty?" Rick said, outstretching a finger at the collection of lights below. "I'll bet that's exactly where we're supposed to go."

"I don't know, Rick. What if it's a dragon's lair, or something?"

"Well, you can just stay up here for all eternity if that's what you want. I'm going to go check it out."

Morty was helpless to object.

It only took a couple hours for them to come within the approach of the bright light. As they grew closer, they saw it was clearly a modern, glass-sheathed office building, rising without explanation from the otherwise naked side of the sullen mountain. Many of the lights inside the building were on, and Morty could see the occasional bustle of activity from within the approximately 40 story skyscraper. While he was still trying to puzzle it out, some kind of aerial vehicle took off from the roof and rocketed off towards the northern horizon.

"Geeze, Rick. What the Hell is this place?"

"I don't know, Morty, but we're sure going to find out!"

It took them another half hour to actually come within throwing distance of the building. A complex pattern of lights surrounding it seemed to direct air traffic, and more lights, these on human-scale, led the pair to a large entrance that reminded Morty of the lobby of a luxury hotel. The doors to the building leapt open at their approach and permitted them into a scrumptiously appointed foyer. The floor was tiled marble. There were several tables surrounded by comfortable-looking couches. Ornate pillars of filigreed marble arose from both sides of the main foyer, and their capitals were illuminated by recessed mood lighting. The entire place had an air of understated elegance. At the north end of the hall, there was a beautiful woman sitting at a reception desk. She was tall with pale skin, crowned with long, raven-colored hair. She had rich brown eyes the color of wet loam. She eyed the pair with suspicion. Morty noted in surprise that she was wearing the same uniform that they'd seen on the Valkyrie, earlier.

"Welcome to Fort Fogcleaver," the woman finally announced in a tone of liquid bemusement. "You must be that pair of lost souls, Rick and Morty. I suppose you'd better go see Adele. She's very angry at you, you know. You'll be lucky if you get out of her office with your balls intact."

"Ahh, geeze, Rick. We're screwed," Morty said while involuntarily clenching his legs.

"And who might you be, beautiful?"

The woman behind the counter just laughed.

"You charmer. I'm Petunia, Valkyrie Lieutenant. But you'd better go disarm Adele before she has a chance to get any angrier. Take the elevator up to floor 36; she'll be in her office, third door from the left."

Rick just shrugged, and the pair boarded at the back of the hall, beyond the reception desk. Rick spent the entire ride upwards devising strategies for getting into Petunia's panties. Morty, for his part, just shuffled uneasily. He had the distinct impression that this might be the last he saw of his balls.

[AUTHOR] Oops, that needed fixing. Chapter 2 will come. I am definitely laughing to myself that the last word of the story that somehow got conspicuously dropped off was the word "balls." That's how all chapters of all stories should end. "Balls."


	2. Chapter 2

The elevator disgorged the pair on the 36th floor with a self-satisfied ping. Rick, true to form, got off like he owned the building and everyone in it. Morty shuffled behind him, groaning gently to himself.

"Here we are, Morty," Rick announced cheerfully when they reached the appointed door. "Say one last goodbye to your balls."

"Y-y-y-y-know, that's not funny, Grandpa Rick."

"It is for me, Morty."

Rick burst through the door to Adele's office without knocking. Sure enough, the woman was behind her desk, gazing into a computer terminal with glassy eyes. She suddenly shot bolt upright in her chair, dropping her feet back onto the floor and moving her hands away from her lap, where she'd been smoothing the hem of her dress? Adele's gaze travelled from distant to surprised to horrified to furious all in a single moment. Now her sapphire glare was so sharp that Morty took an involuntary step backwards.

Rick was the first to break the tableau. "I hope I wasn't interrupting anything."

" _You_ ," Adele replied with a hiss. "What the _fuck_ are you doing in my office?"

"My grandson and I were just taking in the local sights. Wanted to see what kind of operation you're running. You know, the locals down in the valley don't take too kindly to you guys."

"That's an understatement. But they're a bunch of harmless idiots. You didn't answer my question. And don't you know how to fucking knock?"

Rick just shrugged, pulled his flask out of his lab coat, and took a big gulp of the rancid moonshine from the algae farmers.

Adele glowered.

"Well," she finally said. "If it were up to me, we'd leave your ass undead in a ditch. But since I'm a _professional_ , with _professional responsibilities_ , I'm going to give you the same deal everyone gets. This is Fort Fogcleaver, one of our forward outposts in Limbo. We run one transport a month to the city of Neo Alexandria. You're welcome to stay here and wait for it, or you're welcome to get the fuck out of my office and fuck right off out of my life."

"And just what the Hell is Neo Alexandria?" Rick asked with affected disinterest.

"Big city-state, around sixty million people. About two thousand miles from here, unless the plates shift again. I'm sure someone with your ample talent for jackassery will fit right in."

Morty finally found the courage to speak. "Miss, when's the next transport coming, please?"

"You just missed it. So it'll be another month before you can leave."

"What do you think we should do, Grandpa Rick?"

Rick just shrugged.

"Staying in this shithole for *urp* an entire month sounds like it would get old fast. But a city of sixty million – well, that's at least enough that I should be able to get the kind of supplies I need to start doing science again."

"Fine." Adele grinned evilly. "I'm sure we can arrange a couple air mattresses in the sub-basement just for you."

Rick suggested, "Oh, I don't know – are you sure there isn't any room *urp* in your bed?"

"Get the fuck out of my office!" Adele roared.

There was a thin, girlish giggle from the other side of the door. Incredulously, Adele tiptoed over to it and opened it up. Petuna was revealed to be eavesdropping on the other side of it, trying to suppress her heaving laughter.

"What's so funny?" Adele asked with a glower.

"Oh, sorry. I was just dying to hear if you killed them."

"Not today," Adele replied, throwing a glance back at the pair. "But that doesn't guarantee anything."

"Aww, they're not so bad. The old one is kind of cute, in a sexual slumming sort of way. I'll bet he knows how to party."

"Y-y-y we're right here, you know?" Morty objected, but nobody was listening.

"Don't you _dare_ Petunia."

Petunia reached up and poked Adele right in the nose. "Now I _have_ to, just to annoy you."

Rick, who felt he stood to benefit from this interaction either way, was uncharacteristically silent.

Adele snorted. "Well, _you_ can do whatever you'd like. But if I catch you with him in _my_ quarters, I'll cut off both your hands and feed them to an alligator."

"I love it when you talk dirty," Petunia replied with a fake, breathy moan.

"Go _away_. I'm busy."

Adele returned to her desk and looked fully determined to pretend that none of the three existed. Petunia motioned to Rick and Morty, and they followed her out of her office.

"Wow, is she always such a firecracker?" Rick asked conspiratorially.

Petunia laughed. "You have _no_ idea. But she's not so bad once you get to know her. Anyway, it's all worth it; she's as fierce in bed as she is in the field."

Morty said nothing. He was silently struggling with an extremely awkward boner.

"Maybe this won't be such a bad place to spend a month," Rick suggested suggestively.

"Well, as long as I'm here, you won't have to sleep in the basement, at least. There's a pair of rooms you can have in the guest block on the sixteenth floor. Want me to accompany you?" Petunia slid one of her arms into Rick's, and he beamed in kind.

"I-I-I'm right here, you know?" Morty muttered, torn between discomfort and sheer disbelief at the strength of his grandfather's game.

Rick didn't hesitate for a moment. "Lead the way."

The guest rooms were small, but what they lacked in space they made up for in luxury of materials. The sinks and faucets were plated gold. A huge television took up almost the entire wall of the suite. The carpet was thick and forest green, and it maintained a perfect balance between firmness and give. Blue marble tiles, heated from below, paved the floor of the bathroom. Rick was impressed in spite of himself. The Valkyries spared no expense in the quality of the materials used.

Petunia planted her ass on Rick's bed and bounced a little. "So, I don't have any tasks remaining in my duty cycle… and it's not as if those fog-bound idiots are going to attack us here. Want to explore the building's facilities?"

"I'd rather explore _your_ facilities," Rick responded with a leer.

Morty sighed and walked out, and to the room next door that had been designated as his own. He could only hope his grandfather didn't make too much noise. The kind of tail Rick could pull was unbelievable. Was it women mistaking his grandfather's self-centered arrogance for confidence? Now that he was _dead_ , the closest he'd ever gotten to real sex was that dumb Gazorpazorpian sex robot, and that had just been a glorified fleshlight after nothing more than his genetic material. Dying a virgin had always been Morty's greatest fear, and now it had come horribly and irrevocably true. His boner, incited by Petunia's shameless admission of getting a little girl-on-girl on with the sharp but beautiful Adele, raged hard enough to be physically painful. Morty made sure the door to his suite was locked, twice, and slid out of his pants.

Thinking about Petunia while also trying _not_ to think of his grandfather was like walking a tightrope. At one end, desperate release. But he was beset on every side by the horrifying mental image of wrinkly, elderly flesh penetrating the supple and unashamed willingness of the raven-haired Valkyrie… no! Just the Valkyrie! Just the supple and unashamed willingness part!

Back in Rick's suite, Petunia got up off the bed and started fiddling with something on the bedside table. Rick walked up behind her and put his arms around her, and the Valkyrie leaned back into his torso.

"What have you *urp* got there?" Rick asked as she crushed up a pill.

"Ecstasy. Want any?"

Rick was never one to turn down free drugs. "You goddamn better believe it."

Petunia fashioned a long line of the amphetamine, and the pair, sharing some kind of subconscious rapport, took up opposite ends of the table. They each followed the line, sucking the powder into their nostrils with a long breath, until they met at the center with a hard, passionate kiss. Rick wasted no time in slipping in some tongue, which Petunia sucked on greedily. Even Rick was having difficulty believing his luck. Had he somehow accidentally stumbled into Heaven?

It didn't take long for the pair to be at the center of a whirlwind of flesh and fabric. Petunia threw off her clothes as if possessed, and Rick didn't waste much more time. The Valkyrie groaned, scratched, bit, and thrust as Rick subdued her with pleasure. Soon the drug began working, too, adding to the intense field of sensation with the two strange souls at its center. Soon Rick lost track of how many times they shared an orgasm, and then he lost track of all time. When the pair was finally too exhausted to continue, they were both covered with sticky fluid and errant white and raven colored hairs.

"I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth-" Rick finally said.

"Hey!" Petunia complained, putting her hands over her breasts.

"What's the deal with you, anyway?"

Petunia shrugged and walked over to the window overlooking the unchanging twilight outside. Her pale, naked ass seemed to gaze back at him even while Rick stared at it longingly, too tired to continue but too overflowing with hormones not to stare.

"Different world," Petunia laughed. "Different world; different rules. Here, we don't have to worry about any dangers coming from just living in the moment and doing whatever we want. There's no STDs and no pregnancies. There're no long term emotional commitments, at least, not unless you want one. I thought it might be fun so I did it. Simple."

Rick shrugged. "Simple, huh? Is everyone in this world like you?"

"No. In the City, there's all kinds of different people with all kinds of different philosophies. Of course, rescuing lost souls out of Limbo _can be_ dangerous, and it takes a certain kind of personality type to volunteer for that danger." Petunia walked back over to where Rick was leaning on the bed, and put her hand on his arm with a coy smile. "Sensation-seeking personality types. But I'm sure you wouldn't know anything about that."

Rick wasn't sure if it was the drug, or just the proximity of the beautiful Valkyrie, but he was starting to feel uncharacteristically introspective. The sensation made him uncomfortable.

"Yeah, well…" he said, trailing off, saying nothing.

Petunia gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "I'm going to take a shower and then go see if Adele is still awake. The poor girl needs to be defused, and I'm the best person in the whole building right now for doing it."

But Rick had already walled himself back off. "Sure."

Petunia entered the bathroom and the sound of tinkling water followed shortly thereafter. Rick found the television remote and turned on the device. Without his interdimensional cable box or any supplies for building a new one, he'd be stuck with whatever they had on site. To his amazement, they had a fairly large selection of Earth television available for streaming, along with a huge variety of programming Rick couldn't recognize at all. He picked the strangest looking option – a Neo Alexandrian passion play where all the actors, from Pilate to Judas to the Roman legionnaires to Jesus – were all played by the same actor, wearing the same outfit. Soon he fell asleep to the flickering lights in spite of the last vestiges of E pumping through his brain.

The next morning, Rick discovered that it wasn't morning. The alien sky was still unchanged. He yawned, took a short shower, and got dressed. With wry amusement he discovered that Petunia had forgotten her panties in his room. He grabbed them and pounded on the door to Morty's suite.

"Hey _Morty_ , I've got something for you," he loudly announced.

Morty opened the door with bleary eyes. "W-w-w-what now?"

Rick tossed the panties into Morty's face with a triumphant "Ha-ha!"

"Aww, geeze, gross. Do you have to keep doing shit like this?" Morty asked dejectedly while trying to get the undergarments off of himself while touching them as little as possible.

"At this rate that's the closest you'll ever get to a woman, _Morty_ , so you may as well enjoy it."

"Let's just go find something to eat," Morty replied, trying not to let his grandfather get inside his head.

They saw a few other people on their journey back to the elevator. There were a handful of Valkyries, all wearing the same uniform and scurrying about on whatever errands were assigned to them. Every race seemed represented – there was a chubby but pretty Polynesian Valkyrie; two fierce looking blacks; a short, toothy Japanese. Almost all of them were women, though the pair did note with some surprise a lanky male wearing a uniform that was similar though, of course, trading in the skirt for trousers. There were also several staff members of varying description, and one obvious mechanic holding a comically oversized wrench and covered in engine grease.

Rick accosted one of the Valkyries at random. "Hey, gorgeous. Know where my grandson here can get something to eat?"

The woman shrugged. "Commissary is on the third floor."

"Are you doing anything after your *urp* uh, duty cycle?" Rick added hopefully.

"Sorry. I've got a date with washing my dog. Or something," the Valkyrie replied before hurrying away.

"Gee Rick, you really struck out there, didn't you?" Morty said, eager for an opportunity to get Rick's goat in return.

"Shut up, Morty."

"I mean, she didn't even try to give you a good excuse, did she? She sure didn't sugarcoat that rejection."

"I said stuff it, Morty!"

"I don't think I've ever seen you get shot down so hard before."

But Rick was already trying again, this time with the Polynesian Valkyrie, who was ahead of them waiting impatiently for the elevator.

"You know, there's nothing I like in life better than a good luau," Rick said to her.

The woman shrugged non-committally.

"I wouldn't mind doing you from behind while you bit into an apple."

The Valkyrie let out a gasp of raw, unadulterated horror, and then kicked Rick so hard in the balls that he fell gasping to the floor. Morty laughed his ass off while the Valkyrie got into the arriving elevator without a second glance, leaving Rick alone with gloating grandson.

"I think she likes me," Rick finally hissed through the haze of pain clouding his mind.

"Oh man, Rick. You really got what was coming to you."

"Shut up Morty."

When Rick had finally recovered well enough to stand, the pair piled into the elevator. From the touch screen panel that controlled it, it was obvious that Fort Fogcleaver was more than just a military base. It was something like a cross between a military base and a resort. The second floor proudly boasted both a spa, and a series of virtual reality training rooms. A pool seemed to take up the entirety of the eighteenth floor. The below-ground levels advertised an arcade; a small movie theater; and everything you'd need to host a LAN party. The thirty eighth floor, on the other hand, was totally devoted to conference rooms. There was even something called a "Situation Room" somewhere deep below ground level, but the elevator buzzed angrily and refused to take them there when Rick curiously pushed that button.

Instead, they took the elevator down to the third floor commissary. It was large and food was served cafeteria-style, and Morty chose a personal pizza while Rick stacked his tray with a dozen different foods. To Rick's unending delight, a great big steel cylinder was dispensing beer through a series of taps, and he poured himself a serving that would be generous after dinner, let alone before breakfast. The pair looked around for someplace to pay, but as far as they could tell, the food was simply free. Must be one of the perks of the job.

"So are you finally going to give up this God thing, Rick?" Morty asked hopefully after tucking into a few bites of pizza.

"No way, Morty. *urp* That's the point of this whole mission, remember?"

"I thought the point was that we're _dead_."

"I've never felt more _alive_ Morty! It's like I've been waiting to be dead my whole life."

"Then can't you just let this whole thing, you know, go?"

"Nope. In fact, I'll go see this Adele woman just as soon as we're finished eating. She's a bitch, but she seems to have the 411 on this whole place."

"Please stop talking like what you think a teenager sounds like."

"Not gonna *urp* happen, Morty."

After they'd finished their meal, sure enough, Rick made his way straight to Adele's office. Morty followed. While he would have rather stayed in his guest suite and watched TV – or a porno – he was the only person who at least had a chance of keeping Rick out of trouble.

"Hey Adele, open up," Rick said, pushing open the door without knocking.

Adele and Petunia both looked up from what looked like an intense discussion. The only words Morty could catch before the pair turned to look up at the interlopers were 'demon battlecruiser' and 'some serious shit.'

"Didn't I _clearly_ tell you to _fucking knock_ before bursting into my office?" Adele loudly demanded.

"No time. You've got to tell me how I can get ahold of God."

Adele and Petunia shared a sideward glance.

"God?" Adele asked, as if unsure she'd heard right.

"You know. The Boss, the Creator, the biggest swinging dick in the cosmos. God."

Adele's eyes narrowed. "You'd have to talk to a theologian about that. We're soldiers here, not metaphysicians."

"A-ha!" Rick countered. "Nobody would know a five dollar word like 'metaphysician' unless they were elbows deep in some kind of theology."

Adele looked at Petunia. Petunia just shrugged.

"I'll admit, I do have speculations," Adele finally allowed. "When I was alive, I was a Baptist preacher's daughter. Raised to believe the whole shtick, died before I had a chance to fall away from the faith like half the other kids. Whatever it was I expected would happen after I died, it definitely wasn't _this_. So I've done a little reading here and there."

"But I don't know if there really is a God or if there isn't. I certainly haven't met one. There are actually still sects out there who believe this is some kind of intermediary millennium or something; they're still waiting for Jesus' second coming. You can believe that if you like. Personally, I just try not to have an opinion. I believe what I see and that's more than enough to keep me busy."

"Now, Petunia and I were in the middle of an important meeting when you so _rudely_ barged in. Get out, before I throw you out myself. By your dicks."

"Geeze, alright, *urp* alright. Hey Petunia, call me later?"

The brown eyed Valkyrie shrugged. Rick and Morty exited the office, and Rick's eyes darted around, looking for something to do.

"Now what, Rick? They don't seem to know any more than we do."

"Well then, we have to just go find somebody who does. Remember where that ship took off from?"

Morty was hesitant to see what his grandfather had in mind. "The roof?"

"Exactly, Morty. Stay close!"

Now Morty was positive that he didn't want to see what his grandfather had in mind. Nevertheless, no doubt he'd be implicated in whatever scheme Rick was cooking up whether he participated in it or not. The elevator initially refused to take the pair up to the building's roof, but two minutes of careful re-wiring put an end to its objections and it sailed peacefully upwards through the building's interior. The elevator disgorged them on the roof, where several small ships of varying styles glittered under the LED floodlights.

"Geeze. What are you planning, Rick?"

"It's Grandpa Rick when I'm scheming, Morty. We're gonna *urp* steal a ship."

"What!?" Morty backed away with his hands outstretched. "Y-y-y-you can't be serious, Rick."

"What do you think of this one?" Rick pointed at a small, metallic purple vehicle that looked like a long dart.

"No way Rick!"

"You're right, Morty. I don't like the color either. What about this one?"

"We can't do this, Rick!" Morty stalled for time. "What about that Valkyrie, Petunia, you know? Didn't you want to – uh – like bang her, again? And there was a Valkyrie in the commissary who looked a little like Jessica, and she smiled at me, Rick! Maybe I could, you know, get some of that, you know?"

"Life isn't all skinning dipping and pool parties, _Morty_. Why do you have so much trouble sticking to simple plans? Anyway, this one looks most like my old ship, so I'll bet it's the best bet for flying like her too. What do you think of the name _Queen Adele's Revenge_?"

"I think y-y-y-you're crazy, Rick! You're just nuts!"

"Crazy like a fox, Morty. Come on."

And with that, Rick shot off one of the panels on the ship with his plasma pistol and started rooting around its innards. Morty was torn. He could try running to the elevator, going downstairs, and warning the Valkyries about his grandfather's attempted ship-jacking. But who knows what they'd do if they found out. Was there such a thing as afterlife jail? Would they execute him on the spot? On the other hand, it wasn't as if his grandfather had a great track record as a guardian. He had, after all, gotten the teen killed. Dead! Another wave of vertigo overtook Morty as he remembered the full scope of his situation, and he fell to his knees, trying to reëstablish his grip on reality.

Dead!

"Okay, I think I got it, Morty." Rick touched a sensor panel near the ship's cupola, and the transparent metal sprang open at his touch. "Jackpot!"

"I don't think this is a good idea, Rick."

As if to punctuate the sentiment, a klaxon started ringing out across the roof's landing pad.

"Oh shit, Morty! It's time we got out of here!"

"Oh, geeze…"

Rick and Morty piled into the ship, and Rick immediately started pressing buttons at random. The vessel bounced on its landing skids; expanded and then contracted its boarding ramp; and fired a bolt of purple-hot plasma harmlessly into the unending night. Rick even managed to get the windshield wipers going. Finally, he found the controls that would get the ship moving, and it lifted uncertainly off the landing pad just as the elevator disgorged the first of the angry Valkyries.

"Come on, _Adele_! Let's _go!_ " Rick hissed at the thing.

Morty was almost at a loss for words. "Why did you name it… oh geeze."

"Come on!"

An electronically amplified voice called out from the PA system on the landing pad.

An imperious female voice boomed like an angered tribal goddess. "Please land the vehicle and step away."

"Nothing doing!" Rick shouted back, despite the fact the personnel on the ground almost certainly couldn't hear them.

The ship slowly, almost lazily, rotated on its horizontal axis as Rick tried to get it moving forward. Finally he found the correct pedal for igniting the ship's engines, and it shot forward. A few of the Valkyries literally flew after the pair, leaving glowing, streaky contrails of technicolor light in their wake. But _Queen Adele's Revenge_ was faster still. Within a few minutes, they finally pulled far ahead of the fastest of their pursuers, who finally broke off and retreated back to base. Morty stared out of the window as dark, silent landscape unfolded beneath them.

"Geeze, Rick," he mumbled.


	3. Chapter 3

They'd only been airborne for half an hour when suddenly the control panel of the UFO lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Uh, what's going on, Rick?"

"Gee, I don't know, Morty. Maybe it's that giant fucking dragon thing. Just a guess – but it sure looks like a problem to me."

"W-w-what dragon?"

"The one that's been following us for the last five minutes."

Morty craned around in his chair and immediately saw what Rick was referring to. There was an enormous, scaly, red-eyed monstrosity filling up a huge portion of the sky, and it seemed to be slowly gaining on them as they flew. Morty had to quickly cross his legs to keep himself from wetting his pants in terror. The monster was firmly ensconced in the uncanny valley between living organism and machine. Its enormous, blood-soaked head writhed in agony, but there were also numerous mechanical components, such as numerous visible gun turrets and two large docking bays implanted into the creature's mass of tangled flesh. The impossibly large beast appeared to be in agony. Occasionally blood would well up around the ill-fitted mechanical augmentations. As Morty watched, the head of the dragon was suddenly wreathed in a sheath of lightning. It let out a colossal roar so loud there was a visible distortion in the air, and the creature began closing the distance to the UFO even more rapidly.

"Uh, can this thing go any f-f-f-aster, Rick? That thing looks like bad news!"

"No shit, Morty! But I'm already red-lining the engine!"

The shock wave from the dragon's roar caught up to them, and the UFO rattled around wildly and lost a full ten meters of altitude. Rick, slack with drink, rolled with the punch, but Morty was so stiff with fear that his head was slammed into the control panel in front of him and he briefly blacked out. When he came to, the dragon was so close that its gaping mouth filled almost the entire visible hemisphere of the sky behind them.

"Hang on, Morty! I've got this!"

Just as the monster's cavernous maw started closing around the ship, Rick flung the UFO at an almost ninety degree angle to the starboard. They barely cleared a single massive tooth, fifty feet tall if it was an inch, and Morty let out a massive sigh of relief as they managed to narrowly avoid being swallowed whole by the monster.

His head, of course, pounded from the concussion, but that was so regular an occurrence in his life with Rick that he barely even noticed.

The dragon continued on past the UFO. For a brief moment, the pair dared to hope that the creature wouldn't bother with such a small morsel on its way to whatever chthonic destination it was sailing to reach. But the crew of the dragon-ship had other plans. A dozen harpoons erupted up from the deck of the living vessel and thundered their way into the UFO's metallic hull.

"Oh shit, Rick! They got us!"

"I can see that _Morty_. Why don't you get out and cut the lines?" Rick handed the boy a small device of uncertain identity. "Make sure you don't cut yourself with that thing."  
"What is it?"

"It's a projector blade! It has a black hole blade that sucks up any matter you touch it to! Best pocket knife I've ever owned, even if it's illegal on every Federation world and half the planets outside of it. Now hurry up, those things are pulling us in!"

It was true. The deck of the dragon was swarming with several species of slave. Several species were in evidence, from strange, skittering, reptilian creatures to humans to several forms Morty couldn't recognize at all. A fifteen foot tall orc towered over the thralls, bellowing and lashing them with a knife-sharp whip. A number of the slaves were pulling on the harpoon cables, fully twenty slaves to a line, and slowly but surely drawing the UFO ever closer to the deck plate inexpertly bolted to the dragon's flesh. There was a welcoming committee on the deck, but something about the way they were brandishing scimitars and licking their lips suggested they didn't have hospitality in mind. Morty popped the cupola of the ship, and the cabin filled with a roar of balmy, faintly noxious air.

"Hurry the Hell up!" Rick yelled over the din.

Morty crept onto the bow of the UFO, but not without trepidation. He palmed the switch to the knife, extending a blade so perfectly black that he almost couldn't see it. The darkness was so intense, so absolutely perfect, that Morty found it easier to focus on the faint shimmer on its edge. Morty reached down and slid the blade through the closest harpoon line. He almost lost his balance when the knife slid through it without the slightest hint of resistance, and he ended up jabbing a thin gash in the UFO's hull as he desperately shifted his weight to avoid falling off. They were close enough to the deck that Morty could hear the jeers being shouted up at them by the unwelcoming committee. Despite knowing better, the insults made Morty's ears burn.

"Virgin, virgin, gonna rape the virgin!" scimitar-wielding reptilians caterwauled in unison.

That was all the motivation Morty needed. He cut three more of the tow lines in rapid succession. Another one was just out of reach, but if he steadied himself with one foot on the lip of the open cabin, he could just barely manage to reach the next cable. It snapped apart just as readily as the others. The group of harangued slaves on the dragon fell to the ground when the counterweight they were pulling on was suddenly released. They were really close to the deck of the dragon, and Morty realized with a sinking sensation that several of the cables were embedded into the bottom of the UFO, leaving him totally unable to reach. He scrambled back into the cabin and closed the cupola.

"I can't get to the cables on the underside of the ship, Rick! I think they've got us!" he groaned.

"You idiot! Morty, you've killed us, *urp* Morty!"

Rick was jerking at the UFO's helm with one hand, trying to pull them away from the crowd of reptilians, who were now close enough to start spitting on the vessel. With his other hand he was rooting around in the UFO's back seat.

"Y-y-y-you know, don't try to pin this on me, Rick! You know? I don't see how it's my fault we're here."

"The boots, Morty!" Rick waved a pair of boots from a previous adventure - boots that would allow the wearer to adhere to any surface. "You were supposed to put on the boots! Then you could have cut the cables on the bottom!"

"Well gee, Rick, how was I supposed to know you still had those, you know? It's like no matter what kind of mess you make, you treat e-e-e-e-everything like it's all my fault."

"No time for *urp* recriminations! They're pulling us down!"

Sure enough, they were now suspended over the deck itself. Slaves threw nets, bolos, and magnetic weights onto the hull of the vessel. Rick struggled against them with the helm but it was no use. There were simply too many of them. The ship finally landed, where it was immediately lashed to the deck with a dozen more cables.

"Now what, Rick?"

A needle-snouted reptilian face pressed itself against the transparent metal of the copula.

"What a tasty looking virgin!" it crowed. "Ho, ho, ho."

Rick pulled his plasma pistol out of his lab coat and checked the charge.

"Well, we can take some of them down with us."

"W-w-w-what!?" Morty demanded.

"We're doomed, Morty!"

Rick drained his flask and rooted around inside his coat for another.

"What do you mean, doomed!" Morty blanched. "We're already dead Rick! What happens to you when you die in the afterlife? D-d-d-d-do you die for real?"

Rick shot back with a voice dripping sarcasm. "Oh God, I never thought of that before, *hic* Morty! What if there's an afterlife _within_ an afterlife? And what if there's another afterlife inside _that_ one?!"

"Will you please quit making fun of Inception! Everybody knows that movie was dumb, you don't have to keep harping on it all the time, you know?"

"If everyone thought it was so stupid, why did it make sixty two *bleeeh* million dollars in its opening weekend alone? That's more than Independence Day."

The jeering mass of robed figures pelted the ship with rocks; wet, sticky handfuls of shit; and anything else they could find. A few were pounding on the copula with their scimitars. While there was no evidence of any cracking yet, there was no doubt the transparent metal could only survive a sustained assault for so long.

"Rick! You have to adjust the figures for inflation! But now's not really the time, y-y-y-you know? We're about to die here!"

A particularly solid stroke hit the crystalline structure of the copula just right, and a long, thin crack shot through the dome like a bolt of lightning. Rick's pistol let out a high-pitched whine as he charged the capacitors.

"Time to roast some gators," he murmured for his obligatory one-liner.

" **Stop!** "

A prodigious voice, communicated more with psychic energy than by sound, echoed across the deck of the dragon-ship. At once the crowd of howling, hissing reptilians became silent. The steady barrage of handheld missiles halted, and Rick and Morty traded curious glances.

The robed reptiles parted, and a tall, angular man in a black tuxedo strolled languidly towards the UFO. He reached up and knocked once, almost politely, on the ship's cupola.

"W-w-what do we do, Rick?"

Rick shrugged. "I guess we *yrrrrrrrrrp* see what he wants."

With some struggle, Rick managed to open the copula enough so that the pair could slide out of the grounded vehicle and onto the deck of the dragon. Rick composed himself quickly, while Morty looked around, fully enervated. The atmosphere was eerie. The crowd of short, robed reptilian creatures was almost more threatening when quiet than they'd been in the depths of their rage. He nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"Quite an operation you have here," Rick announced, almost disinterestedly.

"Quite," the man replied.

His voice was slick as a freshly oiled piston; as greasy as a Taco Bell quesadilla; and as smooth and earthy as a thousand dollar whiskey. Morty disliked him immediately. He had an aura of uncalculated smarm that wouldn't be out of place in a cheap used car salesman, or a venture capitalist. The crowd of reptilians and orcs stared at the trio with unblinking eyes.

"My name is Ronové, Marquis and Great Earl of Hell. Please allow me to apologize for your rude welcome. Sometimes my menials lose themselves in their enthusiasm for the hunt. I trust there are no hard feelings?"

Rick made a big show of checking out the ship for damages.

"I don't know," he hawed. "The cracked cupola – that won't be cheap to fix. And all those harpoon holes; I'm going to need to replace the body panels on those.

The man calling himself Ronové smiled patiently. "Let me assure you, I can compensate you for damages. But I wonder if you might consider another – arrangement? I didn't realize it until I saw your face on the bridge display, but you _are_ the infamous Rick Sanchez, are you not?"

"That's my name, don't wear it out."

Morty groaned in agony at the "joke" that was already old by the time he'd hit third grade.

"You were quite the toast of Hell a few years ago, when you got Satan himself to attempt suicide. The aristocracy was quite impressed."

"Is that *urp* so. What's it to me?"

"I'd like to offer you a job, as my Chief Science Apparatchik," Ronové said, gently leading them forward towards an open bulkhead into the ship.

"I'm not much of a joiner," Rick answered. "I'm a lone wolf; a free spirit; an army of one."

Morty followed the pair nervously. He wasn't sure if he really wanted to enter the terrible dragon-ship, but the crowding, robed reptiles following at his heels didn't really make any sort of escape an option. The trio entered through a large bulkhead. The floor of the deck was dragonflesh, pulsing and undulating gently beneath their feet. A slave with a large vacuum sucked blood out of a leaking pustule on the wall. Morty couldn't guess how they'd drilled so deeply into the stricken creature while keeping it alive, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know how the diabolical feat had been achieved.

Ronové went on, "Consider yourself more of an independent contractor, then. But you do realize that the only thing you have to yourself in all the world is a stolen vessel. I can change that for you. I can put hundreds of slaves at your disposal, and more resources than you've ever known."

"Never known anyone to offer *hic* something for nothing. What exactly is it you want from me?" Rick countered.

"Just unfettered access to your research. Weapons, ship improvements, that sort of thing. I can make it very much worth your while."

Ronové led them into a large room with a curved window looking down into the blackness outside. The room had rich, thick scarlet carpeting. There was a full sized bar on one wall, at which Rick wasted no time in making himself at home. Beige taspestries hung on the walls, and there were several black couches crowded around a black table on the right side of the room. A naked woman, bound and gagged, was shackled to a chaise longue. Morty sidled over to her while Rick and Ronové talked business.

"What *hic* exactly can you offer *urp* _me_?"

"A cabinet office in the greatest empire in all of Hell is not enough for you?" Ronové asked with bemusement. "Perhaps I can sweeten the deal. I can teach you great and unspeakable magics."

"Dumb. I do science, not any of that mystical woo shit."

"Can your science do this?"

Ronové reached up and started tearing into his own throat. He grunted and strained, and blood spurted from the freshly opened wound. Slowly, in great agony, Ronové managed to tear off his own head with his bare hands. The body and head both dropped onto the floor, while Rick disinterestedly finished his drink and poured himself another.

Morty reached down and ungagged the naked woman.

"Are you in trouble?" he asked her quietly.

She only glared at him.

"Put that back in," she said in a dull monotone.

Morty blinked, shoved the gag back into her mouth, and walked back over to Rick, shaking his head.

Meanwhile, on the ground, Ronové's corpse began to stir. Blood started flowing back into his wounds. His misplaced head, seemingly of its own accord, began to rock back and forth, and then roll over to the neck stump from which it had been removed. After a couple minutes, Ronové stood back up, good as new, without even a blood stain left on the front of his suit.

Rick clapped sarcastically. "Congratulations. Big fucking deal."

Ronové's smug smile flickered for a brief moment before returning in full force.

"Well, what is it you _want_?" the demon Marquis inquired.

For a second Rick was in danger of introspection, but he was able to retain his balance and flippantly dismiss Ronové's question.

"I want to keep it *urp* loose. Be spontaneous, you know? And I don't think being *yuururr* the pet for some demon princeling is a good environment for the *urp* kind of life I want to live. So if you're gonna shoot us or something, just get it over with, because I'm Rick Sanchez baby!"

Not for the first time, Morty wished he wasn't included in Rick's plans.

Ronové just shrugged. "I don't think shooting you will prove necessary. I'm sure you'll change your mind, once you've had a little time to think it over."

The demon Marquis walked out of the room. Rick turned his attention immediately back to his drink, while Morty went to try to door the second Ronové left.

"Uh, I think we're locked in, Rick."

"No *urp* shit."

"What!? If you knew he was gonna imprison us in here, why did you just let him walk away?"

"Oh yeah? And do what, genius?"

Morty stirred nervously. "Y-y-you know, I don't know, Rick. Maybe taken him hostage or something?"

"If you haven't noticed, _Morty_ , there's a whole shipload of heavily armed demons out there, and they've got our UFO locked down tight. And even if we somehow got the ship back into the air, this dragon thing is *urp* much faster than us."

"Well, you're just sitting there, Rick! What's your plan?"

Rick drained half a glass of gin and tonic in a single gulp.

"*urp* Get *hic* drunk *yrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp*"


	4. Chapter 4

Rick barely had enough time to drink himself unconscious before a loud klaxon started blaring inside the locked conference room. Morty ran over to the window and pressed his face against the transparent metal. Somewhere off in the distance, he could make out a few uncertain flashes of bright, colored light, but they were too far away for him to discern what was causing them. Rick groaned and turned to look towards Morty without taking his head out of his arms.

"Turn off your alarm, Morty," Rick half-consciously sputtered. "No school today. Grandpa's too sick to drive."

A bright flash erupted on the horizon, and half a second later, the dragonship rocked from bow to stern. Morty was sent sprawling and the dragon let out a tremendous screech of dismay.

"Yeah yeah yeah, whatever *yrrp* Beth, you don't have to _yell_ ," Rick mumbled before falling back unconscious.

Morty regained his feet just as the dragonship was struck again. He fell right back onto his pubescent ass, and the streaking lights outside the window were noticeably closer. They were machines, and they looked like flying motorcycles. As he strained his eyesight to its limits, he noticed that it was the strange aircraft that were firing upon them, and seated atop each of them was…

"Rick!" Morty wailed, finally getting back upright and pounding his grandfather on the back. "Rick, it's t-t-t-t-the Valkyries! They're after us!"

"Who what now. Oh, the Valkyries. Oh *hic* yeah."

Rick put his head down into his arms and started snoring. The ship got hit again, this time so hard that all the bottles on the bar fell to the floor, most breaking and adding to a tremendously loud tinkle. This, finally, brought Rick back into something like consciousness.

"Oh shit, Morty! The booze!"

"Y-y-y-y-you know, fuck the booze, Rick! We've got to get out of here!"

Rick cradled one of the surviving bottles in his arms.

"I don't think *bleeech* I like your tone, *hic* _Morty_."

There was a series of thuds from somewhere towards the rear of the ship, and then another unsettlingly loud crash. Just enough of the alcohol haze wore off that a tiny quantity of common sense imposed itself upon Rick.

"I don't *yrrp* know, maybe you're right, Morty. Could be time to go."

"Didn't that big crash come from back where our ship was lashed down?" Morty asked nervously.

"Let's go take a look."

Rick walked over to the locked door with Morty close in tow. Rick considered the mechanism for half a second, pulled off a service panel, and tore one of the wires in half with his bare hands. Morty watched in infuriated amazement as Rick tapped on the door once and it slid open without even a hiss.

"You mean you could have gotten us out of here the _whole time_?" Morty demanded.

"Sure, basically an off-the-shelf *hic* electromagnet. Just *brrp* cut the power and it's useless."

"I can't … I can't even, Rick," Morty muttered, too exhausted to even be angry.

With the door open, the sounds of the ongoing battle became significantly louder. The two could hear the agonized screams of dying lizard-people, and the air was filled with the crack of gunfire and whistle of arrows and slings and who-knew what else. Rick cautiously led them down the corridor back to the rear of the ship, from whence the bulk of the cacophony was originating. Morty kept himself pressed against the interior bulkhead of the dragonship, hoping that a reduced profile would make him a little less likely to catch a bullet addressed "to whom it may concern." Another loud explosion rocked the colossal beast from side to side, and it began noticeably listing to the stern.

A small contingent of the lizard-like creatures marched up behind them, and the pair cleared the center of the corridor to allow them to pass. The squad advanced up the corridor and turned a corner at the end, where they were intercepted by a female battle cry, and then a series of three round bursts from an unknown firearm. The lizardmen quailed before the onslaught, and within seconds, the survivors turned and ran past the pair of humans, back towards the safety of the interior of the dragonship. Rick pulled out his plasma pistol and started charging its capacitors with a flick of his index finger.

Two women in Valkyrie uniforms burst around the corner. It only took Morty a moment to recognize them; it was Adele and Petunia. To Morty's amazement, he noticed that Petunia had short, pink, glowing knife-like blades growing out of her wrists, while Adele was holding a firearm that he failed to recognize as a Berretta 93R. Adele let out a quick shout and raised her machine pistol and pointed it at the pair. Petunia suddenly reached out and put her hand on Adele's arm before she could fire.

"Adele! It's Rick and Morty!" she cried in a surprisingly mirthful tone.

A little of the battle haze fell from Adele's eyes.

"Morty… and… _Rick_ ," she hissed, somehow more angry than she'd been when fully absorbed in her trance.

Morty took an involuntary step backward while Adele advanced on Rick. He was still too drunk to realize his danger, and he actually sauntered back towards her, as though in expectation of a warm greeting. Instead, the auburn-haired Valkyire grabbed him by the throat and, despite her much shorter stature, lifted the booze hound fully into the air. Rick started trying to stammer excuses through his bruising larynx, but Adele slammed him face-first into the metal wall of the dragonship.

"You son of a bitch," she seethed. "You shit on our hospitality, steal a shiftship, and then immediately insinuate yourself with the enemies of all sentient life, _everywhere_."

Petunia started giggling with genuine amusement, which made her seem almost as terrifying as her infuriated partner.

Rick tried to justify himself, but he couldn't work out actual words through his tightly-gripped voice box.

Adele went on, "I should rip your head off right here and now. And I would, if you, in your _idiocy_ , hadn't managed to lead Ronové and his battle cruiser right into a trap. We've been trying to lure him out for months but he always escapes before our reinforcements can arrive. But this time, he wandered too deeply into our territory while trying to capture you, and now, he won't be able to escape."

Adele smirked with smug satisfaction, and set Rick back down on the deck and patted him on the head.

Another Valkyrie, this one a blonde with a perpetually confused look on her face and armed only with a clipboard, appeared around the corner. She didn't skip a beat as she strode up to Adele and saluted.

"Report, Nana?" Adele asked impatiently.

"We lost two Mosquitos," the Valkyrie called Nana announced. "Hatchet is hurt but it's not bad. Petra and Leonid are missing."

Adele nodded. "Those two can take care of themselves; I'm sure they're fine. What about the dragonship?"

"Fleeing towards the Fissure for all she's worth. I don't think the remaining Mosquitos have enough firepower to stop it, Adele." Nana glanced downwards.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to bring it down ourselves," Petunia announced, striking a pose with her two pink blades. "For love and justice!"

Adele rolled her eyes.

"Time to fight our way to whatever serves as the bridge of this thing," the Valkyrie commander announced grimly.

There was another loud boom and the dragonship started shuddering, but something about the sensation was off. It didn't have the feel of a machine misfiring, instead, it seemed like the living organism that the ship had been threaded into was suffering from muscle spasms. The deck heaved beneath them at irregular intervals, and it was all Morty could do to keep on his feet.

"You two!" Adele cried out. "Make yourselves useful. Do you know where we can find the bridge? Is Ronové still around?"

Rick scratched his back and shifted uneasily. "I*brp*'m not sure. Up front, they seemed to be controllllll*hic*ing the dragon with some kind of taser. Break all the stuff up there maybe."

Adele nodded. "It's as good a suggestion as any. Banana Split, go help the others on the deck. Keep the demons coming to you. We'll head upwards and see about ruining Ronové's day."

"Just the two of you?" Nana asked with evident surprise.

"We can do it," Petunia said, saluting with her blades. "Besides, we have Rick and Morty to help us!"

"Some help," Adele muttered with a snort.

"Okay, I'm off." Nana strapped her clipboard to a bandoleer hung across her right shoulder, and pulled out a vicious-looking ivory whip to replace it.

Adele started off in the opposite direction. "This way, towards the head."

The walk down the corridor started off as almost serene. Though the air was thick with acrid smoke and the metallic tang of dragon blood, and despite the screams and gunfire that echoed down the hall from where the battle was joined out on the deck, they were able to make their way almost to the breastplate of the great dragon before they ran across any resistance. The enemy must be focusing all of its resources on the obvious threat, the battle outside, rather than worrying about potential infiltrators. The first enemy they encountered was a twelve foot tall orc of some description, which stood so tall that he had to bend over to fit underneath the low ceilings of the dragonship's corridors. Rick and Adele aimed their respective pistols. The orc took a long look at them, shouted, and then all at once, dropped the colossal hammer at his side and started fleeing down the corridor as quickly as he could shuffle while bent under the ceiling.

Adele and Rick shared a sidelong glance. It was hard to be sure who fired first, but Rick's plasma bolt and a three round burst from Adele's pistol appeared to thunder into the demonic creature at exactly the same time. Morty gasped and looked to Petunia, but the raven-haired Valkyrie just shrugged.

"Y-y-y-y-y-I can't believe you guys! He was running away, and you shot him right in the back! Not cool, you know!?"

"He would have just gone and warned the bridge that we're coming," Adele responded with a shrug.

Rick added, "Yeah *hic* what *yrrrp* she *hic* said. Besides, I'm not *hic* taking combat advice from *yrrrp* _you_ , Morty. Notice that nobody has even trusted you with a weapon?"

Morty was a little chagrinned when he realized he was the only member of the party who was unarmed. Rick had his plasma pistol; Adele had her handgun; and Petunia had those strange, glowing pink blades growing out of her wrists. Rick took the opportunity to rub it in.

"What are you *yrrp* even going to do if we run across an enemy, Morty? Bite their ankles?"

"Y-y-y-y-y-you know, that's just about enough, Rick!" Morty objected indignantly.

"*yrrp* Maybe you can *hic* stutter them to death."

Adele suddenly hissed for silence. They were coming up to a doorway. Adele and Petunia flanked it with military precision, while Rick stood a little further back with Morty cowering indignantly behind him.

With a flick of her wrist, Adele changed the pistol in her hand into some kind of mirror on a stick. Morty watched in amazement as she slid it through the doorway and almost got her hand blasted off for the trouble. A massive blast of displaced air tore through the hallway and dug a massive gouge out of the wall opposite the open door. There was a loud bellow from inside, which echoed through what was obviously a huge space behind it. One of the landing bays, Morty assumed. Petunia looked worriedly at Adele.

"You okay?"

Adele nodded. "Yeah, but he knows we're here, and he's covering the doorway. I don't want to leave him at our backs while we try to advance up to the bridge. We'll have to take him out."

"What is he?" asked Petunia.

"Dunno, Pooky. Seemed high-class though." The sharp, blue-eyed Valkyrie smirked. "He was wearing a pimp suit."

"You mean like *hic* a nice suit? Do you mean pimp *yrrp* metaphorically?" Rick interjected.

"No, I mean like a purple-and-gold-lamé pimp suit. You should see this shit!" Adele grinned evilly. "Just stick your face around the corner…"

Petunia interrupted. "So, how do we handle this?"

Adele shrugged. With another flick of her wrist, the little mirror morphed and grew into a large, heavy combat rifle. She summoned Rick closer with a gesture, and pointed at the doorway.

"Pooky, juke right as soon as you're in the doorway. Rick, we're going to lay down suppressing fire to the left. Not much we can do but pray and spray," she murmured. "Hopefully it'll distract him for a second. Alright. Three, two, one, go."

Morty wisely plugged his ears with his fingers. The moment Adele said 'go,' the corridor erupted with the deafening crack of automatic machinegun fire. Rick's pistol added its whining tone to the din, and Petunia vanished into the doorway, so fast that she almost seemed to be teleporting. As soon as she was inside, Adele and Rick advanced behind her, with Morty following far behind with an unwilling gait.

There was a strange noise followed by a loud thump. Whatever air displacement weapon the enemy was using tore into the walls and left them marred and cracked. Morty could hear Petunia shriek, and he hurried inside, heedless of the danger. He paused for a moment to take in the scene inside the hangar.

Their antagonist was, as Adele had described him, wearing a very pimp suit. So much so that Morty almost laughed at the incongruity of it. The creature looked like a small, thin bear, with malevolent black eyes set in a furry and pock-marked face. Its teeth were sharp and vicious under the fluorescent lighting. In another context the creature may have seemed non-threatening, perhaps even cute, but Morty could feel its evil aura from all the way on the other side of the room. It was a killer through-and-through, a killer who delighted in murder and sought to make it as slow and painful as diabolically possible.

The demon was already withering under the combined assault by Adele and Rick. No matter how quickly he tried to re-aim the big, wand-like weapon he was carrying, they skittered out of the way still faster. Another thump slammed harmlessly into a parked vehicle of some kind on the landing deck, and sent it teetering over with a shriek of horrified metal. Petunia, meanwhile, was laying on the floor in a heap. Part of her tunic had been torn away, exposing bleeding flesh beneath. Morty ran to her side.

"H-h-h-hey Petunia, are you okay?" he asked worriedly.

She winced in pain. She was doubled over and trying to stop the bleeding with her hand.

"I'll be fine," she gasped through clenched teeth. "Hurts, though."

"What can I do?"

"Give me your hand."

Morty obediently offered the stricken Valkyrie his hand. To his amazement, she pulled it underneath her torn tunic, and pressed it against the shredded flesh of her side. Morty shifted uneasily on his feet. He'd lusted after Petunia – and the other Valkyries – from the moment he'd first seen them, of course. But he hadn't intended to cop a feel like _this._ Nevertheless, even as he watched, the wound stopped bleeding and even closed a little. Morty couldn't make sense of what was happening.

"What… how…?" he asked quietly, trying to ignore the softness of the skin where it was still intact.

Petunia laughed, a hiss of pain and amusement. "Magic, silly. Intense emotions can be used as a source of power. Lust. Poor thing; you're full of it just from touching me."

"N-n-n-no!" Morty blanched. "Of course not! I mean yes! I mean, you're beautiful but I'm definitely not trying to take advantage of you….!"

"I'll bet you say that to all the girls. You're a good kid, Morty," Petunia smiled through the haze of pain.

On the other side of the room, the demon screamed, a high-pitched sound that made Morty's ears ache. The pair turned to watch how Rick and Adele were faring against the awful creature. In one smooth motion, Adele transformed her rifle into a sharp sword, swung it sideways, and knocked the displacement wand out of the demon's hand, taking off a finger to boot. The demon stared in shock at its hand, now missing a single digit. Rick didn't let the opening go to waste. He effortlessly slid up along the opposite flank of the demon, raised his plasma pistol, and neatly shot the creature point blank in the head. There was an explosion of stinking yellow ichor and the thing collapsed onto the deck.

Adele and Rick shared a professional nod.

"Pooky!" Adele cried, suddenly catching sight of her stricken companion.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," Petunia said. "Morty helped."

Morty stepped aside, and Adele balmed Petunia's injury with her hand. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the wound began to close. Adele had a look of fierce concentration on her face, and a single bead of sweat dripped from her autumn-colored hair and down onto the back of her uniform. She finally let out a gasp and gave up. Morty was surprised to discover that the skin where Petunia had been glanced by the weapon was livid and bruised, but otherwise fine.

"Thanks, Adele." Petunia carefully picked herself back up onto her feet.

"Try not to get hit again," Adele said with a snort. "You know I'm not good at healing."

Morty couldn't help but notice that the hand Adele had used to help her friend was covered in vermillion lesions and bruises. Adele saw him looking and quickly hid it behind her thigh.

Petunia said quietly, "Adele, we have to hurry. We can't be far from the Fissure now and I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to fight our way out of Hell, just the four of us."

Adele nodded curtly.

"Alright boys, pick up the pace, or we'll leave you behind," she announced.

The four made double time back down the corridors of the dragonship. Most of the loud noises had stopped, and Morty guessed that the Valkyries largely broke off their attack from the fleeing ship. The only chance they had to stop it was to make it all the way to the dragon's head and disable the control mechanism. Fortunately, the demons seemed to largely be licking their wounds. They were too disorganized to put up a concentrated resistance, and when they occasionally caught one in the hallway, they quickly dispatched it before it could report the team of saboteurs to the bridge.

"Hurry the fuck up!" Adele hissed at the Rick when he paused in his stride to puke Technicolor all over the deck below.

Finally, they made their way to a stairwell which seemed to lead up alongside the dragon's neck and all the way up to the top of the ship. This time, however, the demons had been clever. Petunia groaned in dismay as she saw that they'd stationed a dozen demons on various landings of the stairwell, all holding vicious-looking compound bows and staring greedily down the open shaft.

"Adele!" Petunia cried in alarm. "We'll never be able to fight our way through all of them without getting hit!"

"Just *hic* leave it to me, ladies," Rick said, starting towards the first stair and into the line of fire.

Petunia threw her arm across Rick's chest, barring his path.

"Don't be stupid!" she hissed. "Adele, what do we do?"

Adele pondered for a second and then snorted.

"Well, they must know we're here _now_. May as well make an entrance. You three, step back."

Morty and Petunia stepped back from the doorway, though Rick had to be dragged away by his lab coat by Petunia. The Valkyrie shrugged to herself and realized that the only way to herd cats was with pussy. She jammed her tongue into Rick's mouth, which kept his attention long enough to keep him from wandering back into the free fire zone in the stairwell.

Adele, for her part, transformed the pistol she'd been holding into a long, hollow cylinder. Morty didn't know what he was looking at at first, before suddenly realizing what it was. A rocket propelled grenade launcher.

"I don't know if that's such a g-g-g-good idea," he murmured, knowing Adele wouldn't pay him any mind even if she could hear him.

Adele pointed the weapon up towards the higher levels of the stairwell. She braced herself against the backblast and then fired, filling the corridor with bright white smoke. There was a momentary pause and then an exceedingly loud thud, so colossally voluminous that Morty could feel it more in his chest cavity than his ears, and he was terrified that his ear drums might burst. But Adele didn't let up. She didn't even pause to reload, utilizing some combat magic that Morty couldn't discern. The Valkyrie must have sent a dozen rockets at various angles up the stairwell before she finally stopped, and the air in the corridor was so thoroughly choked with smoke and debris that Morty could barely see his hand in front of his face.

"You kid, Morty, come here!" Adele demanded.

Morty uneasily made his way to the hot-heated Valkyrie.

"Hang on to me, I need my arms free to fire," she said.

"W-w-w-what?"

But it was too late. Adele forcibly put his hands around her waist and started floating in midair before Morty could even compose a single thought. He held on for dear life as the woman shot up the stairwell. They were flying blindly now; there was far too much smoke and dust in the air to make out how many enemies had survived the RPG barrage. But, the cloud worked both ways – it was highly unlikely any surviving demon would be able to draw a bead on them through the billowing atmosphere. Suddenly, there was a loud thump as Adele hit her head on the ceiling so hard that she almost knocked herself out.

"Shit!" she screamed with a fury so intense that Morty almost involuntarily let go. "That fucking hurt!"

Petunia, one leg raised behind her and holding Rick against herself crotch to crotch, glided up effortlessly beside them.

"Watch out for the ceiling, Adele," Petunia said with a smirk.

Adele growled in response, "Oh, _thanks_."

"We'll just have to feel our way to the bridge opening. I can't see shit," Petunia admitted.

So, the two Valkyries, with their humans holding on for dear life, pawed their way over to the bulkhead that opened out onto the bridge. After a couple minutes they found what they were looking for. Naturally, it was thoroughly closed and just as thoroughly locked.

"Now what? I'm not good with machines," Petunia admitted.

"I *yrrp* can handle this," Rick said. "Just make sure *hic* you don't *yrrp* let go."

Rick twisted around in her arms, making sure that he ended up in a position that put Petunia's right hand completely rest against his cock. The Valkyrie giggled while Rick fucked around with the lock mechanism. Sure enough, it was the same mass-market off-brand that had been used in the conference room. It was the work of a few seconds for Rick to short circuit the magnet and release the door.

The door slid open and exposed the dragonship's bridge. It was relatively small and quite spartan, with iron chairs bolted down in front of instrument panels, all of which were covered with mechanical knobs, buttons, dials, and switches. Morty glanced up at the forward viewport and let out a pained gasp. The ship was headed at breakneck speed towards a diseased-looking maw. It was a vast purple wound in space itself, as though the space-time continuum had been shattered and then wrapped up around itself until it became necrotic tissue. The bridge crew glanced backwards at the doorway in equal surprise. The two groups squared off. The crew was astonished that their security systems had been overcome so easily, and they desperately searched around their stations for weapons even as Adele opened fire once again. Morty wanted to plug his ears but didn't dare loosen his grip on the Valkyrie's warm torso; the pair was floating scores of feet above the floor of the stairwell. So instead, he could feel his eardrums ring in agony as Adele shot up one lizardy body after another. When they were all dead – killed before they could so much as find a single weapon to defend themselves – Adele and Petunia alighted in the bridge and set their charges back down on the deck.

Morty could almost kiss the ground.

"What do we have to smash?" Petunia asked.

Adele looked around.

"Where's Ronové?" she added.

"Right here," announced an oily voice from above them.

The four craned their necks to look. Ronové was walking on the ceiling, upside down, as though he did it for a living. Morty's jaw dropped.

"I must say, I'm impressed." Ronové brushed a little dust from the shoulder of his tuxedo. "So, the little mouse becomes the cat, at least for today. But certainly you don't expect that you've won?"

Adele didn't answer. She just raised her machine pistol and sent several three round bursts at the inverted demon. Ronové laughed and dodged each trio of bullets, before tsking back down at the Valkyrie party.

"I believe it's time for you to take your leave," Ronové said smoothly. "After all, you've got about thirty seconds to get off this ship before it enters the Fissure and traps you with me in Hell, where I can deal with you at my leisure."

The maw in the center of the viewscreen had definitely grown bigger.

"Shit! Adele!" cried Petunia.

"I know!" Adele replied uncertainly. "Damn it, we can't just let him go!"

Meanwhile, Rick had walked over to one of the windows of the bridge, overlooking the starboard side of the dragon's colossal head. He picked something out of his pocket and let it drop end over end out of the window.

"*yrrp* Oops," he said disinterestedly.

For a long moment, nothing happened. The tableau held. Then, with horrifying suddenness, too many things happened at once. There was a loud, buzzing crackle of electricity as the gigantic electrical field controlling the dragon short circuited, thanks to the foreign object Rick had dropped into its most vulnerable nest of wiring. The dragonship, freed from its slavery, let out a terrifying roar and thrashed around uncontrollably. The five still on the bridge were tossed around like backgammon dice. Rick was quickly able to activate his boots and stay firmly affixed to the floor. Adele and Petunia took flight, allowing the decks to jostle around them while they stayed hovering in midair. Ronové, chagrinned, joined the pair of Valkyries. But Morty was completely helpless. During one particularly violent thrash, he was slammed against an instrument panel at the back of the bridge and fell into concussed unconsciousness.

The freed dragon finally regained some control over itself. It started clawing at the mechanical decks and bays embedded into its flesh, tearing out huge chunks of bloody ichor out along with the implants. The creature was filled with a blind, heedless desire to be free of its agony. Ronové blanched.

"You… you bitches! You fucking Valkyrie bitches!" the demonic Duke screamed, his face distorted by incoherent rage.

Petunia spun in midair, using her glowing pink blades to pose when she turned back to face Ronové.

"You should have known better than to fuck with us," the raven-haired soldier declared effusively. "Love and justice _always_ win!"

Adele was less enamored with her own victory. "Uh, Pooky, it might be time to go."

"Hmm?" Petunia asked, turning to face her companion.

But Ronové got the message first. The moment Petunia turned away, he bolted for one of the ship's windows so quickly that he dove right through it without even bothering to open it first. Petunia's face fell as she realized what was happening. The dragon was tearing itself to ribbons in its desperate desire to free itself from the demonic implants, and a giant claw, fully the size of a skyscraper, towered above the bridge as the dragon turned its attention to the building bolted to the side of its head.

Petunia's reply was brief but it expressed her feelings perfectly. "Uh oh."

"Grab Rick, I'll take Morty!" Adele shouted.

The two Valkyries darted across the bridge, each grabbing one of their charges and flying at breakneck speed towards a window. The giant claw came down. It tore through the reinforced steel of the bridge like it was tissue paper, crushing everything that it didn't slice in two. The Valkyries barely made it out before the rest of the scaly claw came thundered into the building with an unspeakable crash. Petunia could swear she felt a scale the size of a city bus actually brush the tiny hairs of her forehead before she managed to get clear of it.

"Adele! You okay!?" Petunia shouted over the din.

A blue streak caught up with her.

"I'm fine! Let's just go!"

The two Valkyries alighted on the dark, dun-colored plain. Rick stood beside them, while Morty laid peacelessly on the ground in a concussed heap. They watched as the dragon continued to tear huge chunks of demonic engineering out of itself and hurl them to the ground. With one final, spine-shaking roar, it disappeared over the horizon, hopefully free of its slavers for the rest of its existence.

Adele murmured and shuffled on her feet.

"Hey, Rick… you didn't do such a bad job back there," she stammered.

Rick snorted. "I think the words *hic* you're looking for are _thank you_."

Petunia twirled and planted a kiss directly on Rick's lips.

"Thanks Rick!" she said.

After another moment, the three looked back up into the sky. They were kind of in the middle of nowhere.

"What next?" Rick asked uncertainly.

"Well, I've sent out a call for a ship to pick us up. We dismantled Ronové's battlecruiser and sent him running back to Hell with his tail between his legs – I'd say that's enough work for one day." Adele turned to look at Rick severely. "I'll have you provided with a Mosquito that you can fly anywhere you want – just so long as it's way the Hell away from me!"

Petunia reached out and gave Adele a quick kiss, but not so quick that the two didn't share any tongue.

"Surely you'll let me have a little time to say goodbye to Rick, right?" she asked innocently.

"I don't care what you do as long as I never have to see _any_ of you again!"

"Oh, Adele," Petunia concluded airily. "You know it hurts my feelings when you pretend you're getting rid of me."


	5. Chapter 5

Morty held onto Rick's torso for dear life as the Mosquito tore across the sky. According to the directions given to the pair by Adele, if they headed due north regardless of how the terrain shifted beneath them, they should reach the city-state of Neo Alexandria within a day or two. They were currently traveling above a tropical rainforest. The air was fragrant with the scent of jungle, but there was a fetid tinge to it, too – the odor of blooming flowers wafted upwards alongside the smell of rotting undergrowth and decaying flora. Rick, true to form, was harassing Morty with tales of his most recent sexual exploit.

"Petunia actually smelled _like_ *yrrp* petunias, Morty. Do you think she has a perfume, or maybe that's how she got her name in the first place?"

Morty sighed. He was a captive audience – at least, unless he wanted to leap off the Mosquito and try his luck in the thick jungle that stretched to the horizon in every direction without even a hint of human habitation.

"I'm not interested, Rick," Morty groaned aloud.

"She had me _pee_ on her, Morty!"

"What, gross!" Morty blanched even though Rick couldn't see him. "W-w-w-w-why would anybody do something like that?"

"I *urp* dunno, Morty. Some women are just perverts."

"S-s-s-stop telling me this shit! I don't want to hear it, you know?"

"Hey, statistically speaking, you'll probably get a woman to touch your dick eventually, Morty. You may as well know beforehand how fucked up they are."

"I'm not interested in your opinions, Rick," Morty objected angrily.

"Suit *yrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp* yourself. Just thought you'd want to *urp* learn a few tips from the best, first."

For the next few hours, Rick lapsed into merciful silence. For his part, Rick was busy replaying the mental imagery from his mutually enjoyable valediction with Petunia. Morty, on the other hand, was trying to get the exact same collection of mental images out of his head. The vivid green landscape beneath the flying motorcycle continued to roll away beneath them. It began to become hypnotic. A river appeared in the distance, and Morty was surprised to see that on the other bank of the river, the jungle abruptly transformed into snowy tundra.

"Hey Rick, what's with that landscape ahead?" Morty asked uncertainly.

"Petunia explained it to me. Apparently, this dimension is a patchwork of non-contiguous parts of various 'worlds,' which are always jostling against each other in ever-changing *urp* uh, relationships."

"Whatever, Rick." Morty was too exhausted by the non-stop wonders that constituted his daily life to even be surprised.

The pair flew on. They passed over the river and the air around them immediately became frigid, convincing Morty to pull even closer to his grandfather for warmth. He was surprised to discover that despite some mild discomfort, the intense cold didn't do much more to his unprotected extremities than raise goosepimples. Morty thought he'd rapidly experience creeping tendrils of frostbite, but the cold seemed to have very limited power over his strangely corporeal spirit body. Rick accelerated the Mosquito until it was redlining. Vented heat from the overworked engine warmed the air around the rapidly-moving vehicle, alleviating some of Morty's discomfort.

After an interminable amount of time passing over empty snowfields, Morty felt his head nodding.

"I'm getting pretty tired, Rick," the teen admitted.

"Okay, okay," Rick replied. "Let's at least wait until we get out of the snow, or see a village or something."

The tundra rolled on and Rick started to get impatient. Petunia promised him that last time a ship had returned from the city, it had reported the tundra bubble to only last for an hour or two at most. They had definitely been travelling longer than that; the bubble must have expanded since the last time a ship had arrived at Fort Fogcleaver. Mapping the ever-changing relationships of the dimensional patchwork was a task in futility, and the best navigators could do was give one another friendly advice that might be worthless or even counterproductive by the time it could become relevant. The minutes stretched on into hours, and Morty felt his grip on his grandfather's waist slacken several times as he almost fell asleep where he was sitting. Just staying conscious was taking almost more effort than the boy could give.

"Hey!" Rick suddenly shouted over the howling wind. "*urp* Look, Morty! A village!"

Morty raised his head and peered over Rick's shoulder. Sure enough, there was a small cluster of buildings planted in the snow ahead of them, with faint wisps of smoke that rose together to form a dungy haze above the town. Rick peeled off of their northbound trajectory and made aim for the unassuming hamlet.

It only took five minutes before Rick was landing the Mosquito right in the middle of the village's small, central square. Already curious-looking villagers in thick fur parkas were sidling out of their homes and gathering around the pair. One, a brown-skinned and malnourished-looking elder, strode up to Rick and Morty as if he'd been expecting them for weeks.

"Aang," the elder announced in a tone equal parts welcome and suspicion.

Rick pulled out his universal translator, stuck one wireless bud into his right ear, and gave the other to Morty. Rick made an impatient gesture with his hand, and the elder repeated his greeting.

"Hello," the tinny earbud translated.

"Hello," Rick replied, speaking into the device which dutifully translated his words back into the villager's strange language. "We're on a journey and *yrp* hoping we can rest here the night."

The elder smirked in a way that made Morty feel distinctly uncomfortable.

"Perhaps," the translated obliged, while the bone-adorned witch doctor scanned the youth's face very carefully. "I think we might be able to make a mutually beneficial arrangement."

Rick shot back, "A trade? Don't *yrrrp* you people like, pride yourself on your *blech* hospitality to strangers, like other primitive cultures?"

The elder carried on as if he hadn't heard Rick, and the translator obediently repeated his answer.

"We are a small tribe, and it is many miles across sheer, unforgiving ice to our nearest neighbors. It's rare for traders or pilgrims to make their way to our village. It's our custom at times like these to offer up our daughters for an exchange of genetic material. We are concerned about our genetic diversity; unless we get outsiders to contribute to our gene pool, it's only a matter of time before we become extinct due to inbreeding. Of course, your seed is too overripe to serve that vital function…"

At this, Rick visibly bristled.

"But the young one with you, your boy; he's young enough that his DNA seed is probably in pristine condition. He's perfect. Atiqtalik, come."

A girl about Morty's age, wearing a thick parka, stepped forward to flank her father. Without a moment's shame or hesitation, she dropped her thick fur clothing to the ground, exposing her naked body in the flickering light of the village's central meeting-fire. Morty gaped while Rick looked disinterested. Like her father, her skin was brown, the color of cappuccino. Her hair was so black that it was almost blue. She had a thick tuft of tangled black hair on her pubic mound, and though she was a little chubby from a lifetime of eating seal blubber, her breasts were full and round and supple. Morty took an involuntary step forward. He could practically feel her hot breath on his neck, and the stirring in his jeans proved that he'd have no trouble helping the villagers solve their genetic diversity problem.

Atiqtalik smiled. Fully nude, the sparkle in her eyes struck a perfect balance between demure and hungry. Morty could feel his heart flutter along with his other relevant organ.

Rick thumbed off the translator.

"I wouldn't do that *urp* if I were you, Morty," he warned.

"W-w-w-w-w-www-w-w-w-w-w-what!?" Morty shouted. "You've gotta be kidding me, Rick! Now's finally my chance, and I'd be helping these people, too! How can you get in my way at a time like this, Rick!? What is _wrong_ with you? Don't you want me to, you know, finally be able to, you know?"

"Morty, I can't just *yrrrrp* sit here while you become your own great-great-great-great-great-great and so on grandfather."

"What do you mean?" Morty demanded angrily.

"This is the Bering land bridge, Morty! These people are the ancestors of the Aleuts. We're in prehistoric Alaska, Morty! You can't just go around becoming your own *hic* grandfather! I tried it, it never turns out well."

Morty sighed. It was a long sigh, the sigh of years of frustrated hopes and pent up desire. No matter how much he wanted to, there was no way he could contradict Rick. He was too used to the feeling of failure. That feeling was his most reliable companion, even as circumstances came and went. In a way, he reasoned, he should have expected this in the first place. It was the story of his life - being tossed a bone for just long enough to have it taken away. Rick flicked the translator back on.

"Sorry, chief. My grandson *yrrrp* lost his dick in a tragic dick-losing accident when he was a baby. The frank, the beans, all of it."

Morty turned beet red with embarrassment and fury.

"That is… unfortunate," the village elder admitted.

Atiqtalik huffed with disappointment, picked her heavy clothing back up off the snow, and arranged it back around her body, visible disgruntled.

"Well, I suppose it's no fault of your own," the elder went on. "One of our warriors is out on a scouting mission, and you can rest in his hut until he returns."

"We*yrp*'ll be gone in the morning," Rick said.

"Atiqtalik! Lead them, please."

Atiqtalik huffed and led Rick and Morty inside an empty hut. Rick lit the cold ashes in the hearth with a low-powered blast from his plasma pistol, and the girl watched in rapt amazement.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Rick asked.

Atiqtalik nodded, and then rushed out of the hut without casting another glance at Morty. For his part, the teen watched her go with a forlorn look on his face.

"Rick, are you _sure_ I can't, y-y-y-y-you know….?" he stammered. "I mean, how can we even _be_ here in the first place? You don't just go back in time when you die, right?"

Rick took a deep swig from the bottle he stole from Ronové's flagship.

"No idea, *yrp* Morty. Petunia said that the *hic* laws of physics work differently here. Space and time are *bleeeeeeeeech* malleable."

"Well then, maybe this is some alternate universe, where I can bang her without any negative consequences?" Morty inquired hopefully.

"Morty, watch your mouth! You're talking about *yrp* a lady," Rick admonished. "Too risky, Morty."

Morty sighed and hurled himself into a pile of stinking animal skins that served the hut as a bed. He was too exhausted and disappointed to even cry, and wanking his pain away was out of the question in the presence of his grandfather. Instead, he quickly fell asleep on the musty, bear-scented fur.

As always, dawn came too soon. Morty awoke to his grandfather shaking him relentlessly.

"Time to head off, Morty."

"Can't we at least stay for breakfast?" the teen replied, trying to rub nuggets of dried sleep out of his eyeballs.

"The sooner we get to Neo Alexandria the better. Adele wrote me a letter of recommendation that should *yrp* help get me a job as an independent researcher at their big university or whatever."

The letter was firmly ensconced in Rick's white lab coat. It was labeled To: the department chair of low energy physics at the University of Neo Alexandria. From: Adele, Valkyrie Commander, Fort Fogcleaver. As for the reference line, it stated Re: Asshole. Rick hurried Morty along without allowing his grandson to do more than stammer uncertain protests. The entire village watched as the pair climbed back aboard the Mosquito and took off into the sky.

Atiqtalik stared at the receding vehicle until it vanished over the northern horizon.

"Father, were they… gods?" she asked in a quavering voice.

The village chief snorted.

"No, beloved cub," the shaman-elder answered sardonically. "Those two were just assholes."

The air roared around the speeding Mosquito, and snowfields rolled below the machine like slow-motion waves. The whiteness was blindly bright underneath the morning sun. Little clusters of uncovered ice refracted the sun and sparkled like impossibly scintillating jewels. It was too dazzling to look at, and Rick flew them forward on instruments alone while Morty looked down and played with his fingers.

"She *yrrp* had a bubble butt anyway, Morty."

Morty looked up, aghast.

"I don't want to talk about it with you, Rick!" he replied angrily.

"*hic* I mean she had a pretty face, but if she'd gotten on top, she *yrp* could have caused serious internal trauma!"

"Rick, she was just a little chubby! B-b-b-besides, I've seen you land some real whales yourself, you know? So I don't think you have the right to criticize her!"

"I'm just saying, Morty! I'm just saying. I'm older, I have experience." Rick affected his most grandfatherly tone, and Morty briefly considered throwing him off the Mosquito. "For your first time you've gotta *hic* find the right girl. For you, I'm thinking someone your age, shoulder-length red hair. Maybe a little taller than you. Likes to wear headbands."

Morty retorted angrily, "Rick, you're describing Jessica! And thanks to you, I'm never going to see her again!"

"Me? It's not my fault those *yrp* stupid Zigerions thought-"

"I don't care, Rick! Will you please just _shut up_!"

The pair passed in silence over the tundra. After another two hours in flight, they finally came to a thick crevasse in the ice. On the other side, the climate changed abruptly, and rolling green hills stretched to the horizon in front of them.

"I think this is *hic* it, Morty! Petunia said this is what the Neo Alexandrian plate looks like from the south! Another few *yrrp* hours and we'll be in our new home, Morty!"

"That's great, Rick," the teen answered emotionlessly.

"Cheer up, Morty. According to the Valkyries, the population of this region is ninety million. You're sure to find *hic* a replacement for Jessica somewhere."

Morty resolved not to talk to Rick again for the rest of their flight.

As soon as they made it to the other side of the great crack in the ice, the air immediately became warm and aromatic with the smell of prairie in spring. They passed over several good-sized villages, and they eased into a lane of air traffic that led due north towards the plate's capital. There were aerial trucks and flying cars, but after visiting scores of worlds evincing every level of technological development, he found himself less than impressed. The rolling plains beneath them became foothills, and then low mountains. A glittering gem on the horizon soon revealed itself to be their destination – the city of Neo Alexandria.

"What do you think of our new home?" Rick asked with evident excitement.

"I don't care, Rick. I just want to settle into a new routine and not think about anything, you know? I just want to have my own room again where I can be alone for awhile."

"Sure, sure, Morty. No need to be so _hormonal_. Let's just check in at the university and I'll get us an apartment right away. Shouldn't be too hard to trick these rubes into giving me an advance on my salary. Adele was impressed by my credentials."

"I don't think Adele was impressed by you at all, Rick."

"Stop being such a naysayer, _Morty_."

They flew over a vast quilt of suburbs, and then into one of the clusters of the city itself. Rick was eventually forced to land and ask for directions; the great metropolis was too big for even him to orient himself properly in. Furthermore, it was a huge mish-mash of differing styles of architecture and modernity; there were old quarters with narrow alleyways and covered bazaars plopped down right next to gleaming new apartment buildings sixty stories high. A fuel station technician took pity on Rick, and showed the bristling scientist how to work the cellular positioning system built into the Mosquito's control panel. They finally arrived at the university just as the sun was starting to sink over the mountains that obscured the western horizon of the city. The metropolis was in the middle of a vast bowl which was surrounded by mountains on three sides and a warm sea to the north.

"Stay here, Morty," Rick demanded when they found a parking spot, and Morty was only too happy to oblige.

The teen made his way over to a bench and plopped down. With nothing else to do, he devoted himself to people-watching until Rick returned from begging for a job. Students walked by, headed to and fro on their own errands, and a few turned and gave the boy quick nods of acknowledgement as they passed which he cheerlessly returned.

The more Morty watched the more quietly astonished he became. Every human culture seemed to be represented, and the kinds of freedom afforded to these people were like nothing he'd seen back home, on the Earth. Completely topless women walked by chatting unselfconsciously with their friends, and when one caught him staring, just gave him an innocent grin and continued on her way. On the other hand, there were also women in full burkas, and they seemed just as at ease on their way to wherever. Every fashion style and era passed in front of the teen as he awaited Rick's eventual return. Morty didn't know the word for mod, but he would have been able to identify several groups wearing that style immediately if he did. A group of four drunken frat boys wearing togas and leather sandals jostled past making homoerotic innuendo. A brunette wearing a slacks and a smart blazer walked in front of the bench, and as Morty caught a casual glance at the textbook she was carrying he did a double take – Intermediate Prostitution for Majors, Theory and Practice.

After an hour or so, Morty consciously noticed something that his subconscious was bugging him about. Despite a handful of outliers, almost everyone on the campus looked between the ages of twenty or thirty, in the prime of their youth and health. While that might naïvely be expected on a university campus, the first time Morty saw somebody Rick's age he physically recoiled from surprise. That's when he realized that he'd only seen a handful of fat people from the hundreds that passed by, and even they had body types that made it seem as though heavier weights were the best possible look for them. He filed the information away in his memory bank, to be pondered later, when he could finally be really alone. The sun sank below the mountains. One by one, the streetlights flicked themselves on.

"Aren't you just the cutest little kid!" announced a woman wearing a thin yellow sundress. "Are you lost?"

Morty sighed. "No. I'm just waiting for my grandfather."

"It's unusual to see a young person in Neo Alexandria! Were you born here, or did you die before- oh, I'm so sorry! That was rude of me to ask a total stranger."

"Don't worry about it," Morty answered, trying to keep a whine out of his tone. "I died because my grandfather is an idiot."

"Oh, I knew I shouldn't have said anything. You just looked so lonely sitting all alone like that. My name is Tabatha, and if you need anything, you can just give me a call."

Morty nodded absently; he just wanted her to go away. She just stood there staring at him. He stared back at her. Tabatha seemed to be expecting something, but Morty couldn't for the life of him figure out what.

"Yes?" he finally asked when the silence grew too uncomfortable to maintain.

"You know how to exchange numbers, right?"

"Sure. You write it down on a piece of paper and give it to me… I don't have a phone with me, and even if I did I'm sure I wouldn't get Verizon service here."

"Verizon?" Tabatha looked befuddled. "Just tap your Pocket against mine and you'll get my e-ID."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Tabatha finally gave up. "Sorry for disturbing you!"

She scurried away, and, mercifully, Rick returned before Morty had any more uncomfortable interactions.

"Good news, Morty!" his grandfather announced enthusiastically. "They're taking me on as an independent researcher, _and_ they got us an apartment and you're going to attend a couple classes here!"

"That's great, Rick. Can we go home now?"

The pair hopped back onto the Mosquito and took off into the air. After only a few minutes of flying, they arrived at a tall, modern-looking apartment building of glass and steel with a bar on the street level. Rick pressed a small plastic rectangle into Morty's hand.

"Here, have a key to our apartment, Morty. Twentieth floor, Suite 2012. I'll meet you up there later."

Morty shrugged. "What are you going to do, Rick?"

Rick swept his hand across the room, taking in the whole bar.

"I'm gonna get druuuuuuuunk!"

Morty didn't bother to even look back at his grandfather, who was already ordering three shots and hitting on a woman on the barstool next to him. Instead, the teen made his way to the elevator bay, rode it up to the twentieth floor, and let himself into the chilly, unfurnished two-bedroom that would serve as the pair's new home in a new dimension. There wasn't a bed in his room yet, but Morty was so emotionally and physically worn out to care. He was too tired to even masturbate. Instead, he just fell asleep on the thick, accommodating beige carpet.


End file.
